Most Test Laboratories, in any field they operate, has now adopted a L.I.M.S. (Laboratory Information Management System) to increase the efficiency of the processes that govern the activities.
But these LIMS “general-purpose” often do not provide a uniform interface which acquires the data from tools storing them in a DataBase.
Many LIMS claim to interface Instruments, but maybe propose solutions based on specific Drivers; on the other hand the SDM Systems offer you technologies such as “print to database” to organize the output information from the instruments, but can not quite almost never have an interface customization with the LIMS.
Actually it exists, in the international Software market, some Products for interfacing LIMS and tools, but the cost of licenses and implementation is objectively high.
For this reason, the R & D Software Division of Polisystem Informatica, has realized the project “LIMS-IP-Open” designed, produced and tested for independent integration between tools, SDMS and LIMS, customizable by the users of the Laboratory, at an affordable cost for ensure safe and fast return on investment.
Laboratories, to provide professional services, must heavily invest in technology: Equipment and Software (LIMS, SDMS, ERP, Business Intelligence). Often, however, these investments do not exploit the opportunities that could arise from the integration of these systems, to avoid duplications and transcriptions, sources of errors and lost productivity.
Obviously it would be preferable a solution that could present itself with a single user interface, but it could, with minimal setup and configuration tasks, interface with many different tools.
In addition to the acquisition of several types of instruments, this solution should offer the user the opportunity to view the data, perhaps by activating the logic of elaboration and integration of the same, before transmitting the results to LIMS.
In this generic “middleware” the data from the various instruments may then be stored in intermediate documents before being sent to the LIMS, also because the period required for the storage of data from an instrument may be longer than the life of the instrument cycle : this possibility can be an issue in the case (which is common) as the output format from the instrument is owner.
Finally, if you could imagine the perfect solution for interfacing instruments, surely you would want to rely on features based on the principles of a spreadsheeet as MS / Excel®, allowing the user to manage the control of the interface configuration.
Excel® in fact allows the user to instruct the application logic to execute precisely what he wants.
The end user can create and change logical calculation, display the data that needs to see, and generate Reports just as he needs, and all this without the need for custom software code.
“LIMS-IP-Open” is a “middle-layer” software, designed to achieve these desired, as a standard unified interface between LIMS and SDMS.
The word “Open” added to “I.P.” (Instruments Protocol), is to symbolize that points on opening :
against any LIMS different from the “Analisi” of Polisystem Informatica
managing not only the results, but any other value produced from the SDMS software
to the parametric configuration of the system designed for use by the end user
Polisystem Informatica has learned from direct experience that the tools to interface with LIMS saves money every day to laboratories, helping them to minimize time and resources, eliminate transcription errors and applying the methods of calculation.
The unified interface for tools drastically reduces the learning curve for operators and provides autonomy in the parameterization of the acquisition mode by the instruments in time.
But we can try to quantify everything in realistic terms?
What are the costs of a project for interfacing instruments to LIMS in use at the Laboratory?
What will be the Return on Investment R.O.I. in a span of time?
