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Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780851868240 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Royal Society of Chemistry |
| Publication date: | 05/19/1994 |
| Pages: | 194 |
| Product dimensions: | 6.10(w) x 9.10(h) x 0.40(d) |
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LIMS: Implementation and Management
By Allen S. Nakagawa
The Royal Society of Chemistry
Copyright © 1994 The Royal Society of ChemistryAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-85186-824-0
CHAPTER 1
Historical Perspective
Above all, the principal product of any laboratory is information. This information advances the state of our commerce, welfare, and the technologies upon which our businesses and societies rely. The analytical measurement (or information generating) capabilities of laboratories are based upon increasingly complex testing systems. They consist of a coherent blend of components representing innovations from several disciplines. In fact, the specialized field of analytical chemistry consists of an ever-expanding collage of scientific areas, including organic chemistry, biochemistry, mathematics, inorganic chemistry, optics, biotechnology, microbiology, physics, electronics, statistics, and immunology.
During the past three decades, automation has exponentially increased the laboratory's data generation and information management capabilities. This chapter presents a historical perspective on computer-mediated improvements in laboratory capabilities, efficiency, and overall operations. The first section presents a chronological overview of innovations affecting the usage and application of computers within the laboratory. The second section discusses the historical development and selected case histories of LIMS.
1 History of Laboratory Computer Utilization
Progress in automation of the laboratory parallels technical and commercial developments in computers. The earliest mainframe computer systems of the 1960s were extremely expensive and required highly skilled professionals to keep them running. Initially, only the wealthiest organizations could afford them. Their use was highly restricted, tightly controlled, and had to be scheduled far in advance. By today's standards, the earlier machines were extremely primitive. Over the years, technological developments have significantly improved the capabilities of, performance of, and access to automation. At the same time, the cost of computers has dramatically decreased. The capability of the earlier million dollar systems is now readily available in pocket sized calculators costing less than 10 dollars. The extent and use of automation by laboratories has increased as the emerging technology has developed, stabilized, and become more affordable through large-scale production and marketing.
The use of computers in laboratories proceeded through the following stages.
• Initially, scientists created programs for their own use. Usage was limited to individuals who were highly computer literate and to organizations willing to invest the substantial time needed to create software.
• Commercial software packages emerged which provided increased access to automation. This extended the utilization of software to organizations who were unwilling to invest in substantial software development efforts.
• The costs of computer hardware decreased substantially due to advances in solid state electronics and the introduction of personal computers. With each passing year, more power was provided at lower absolute costs. This improved the affordability of automation and extended its acceptance by more and more organizations.
• Software advanced to provide easy to use and intuitive user interaction. Scientists no longer needed to be computer literate to capitalize on automation's capabilities. This facilitated the expanded acceptance of automated systems.
Computation
The earlier uses of computers involved tedious and time consuming calculations. Examples include kinetic, thermodynamic, and statistical computations. It replaced labour-intensive and tedious work previously completed manually or with the assistance of mechanical calculators. The computer provided higher levels of accuracy, reduced errors, and produced significant labour savings.
Instrument Automation
Advances in analytical instrumentation significantly improved the testing throughput of laboratories. These were enabled by advances in electronic controls and the integration of instruments with computerized data acquisition and control systems.
Electronic Instrument Control
The early instruments were inherently mechanical or optical devices. Data from each measurement was individually recorded on paper or film. The physical manipulations required, and the recording of all relevant data, consumed considerable effort.
The introduction of electronic controls in the 1960s substantially decreased the amount of manual labour required for analytical measurements. As an example, generating a sample's visible spectra previously involved the manual recording of many data points from a spectrophotometer. The analyst incrementally changed the wavelength setting of the instrument before recording the next data point. Once all the points were recorded, the spectra was obtained by manually plotting all the points on graph paper. With electronic controls, the analyst initiates the instruments wavelength scanning and the spectra is automatically plotted on an attached recording device, thereby eliminating the need for the manual recording and graphing of data.
Computerized Instrument Control and Data Acquisition
The advent of the integrated circuit and minicomputers in the 1970s facilitated automation of instrument data acquisition and control. Computers were then capable of controlling many aspects of the analysis. The data were automatically captured, stored, calculated, and processed by programs on the computer.
Within a few years several instruments with dedicated processors and programs were commercialized. Examples include automated systems dedicated to several types of chromatography and spectroscopy marketed by firms such as Beckman, Hewlett-Packard, and Perkin Elmer. In the late 1970s, almost every instrument sold included some form of built-in automation. Mass marketing of these systems substantially increased their accessibility and affordability.
Automation made possible the routine acceptance of several advanced testing techniques previously considered too time consuming for routine use. Many analytical measurements were not practical for high-volume testing without the instrument control, data acquisition and processing capabilities afforded by the combination of computers and instrumentation. Examples include FTIR (Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy) and GC/MS (Gas Chromatography/Mass Spectrometry).
The routine use of automated sample handling devices permitted testing to occur without the constant attention of an analyst. This facilitated unattended operation and 24 hour utilization of many testing systems.
Capabilities provided by automated instruments have drastically improved the efficiency of analytical testing. One estimate is that advances over the 1978–1983 time period alone resulted in a five-fold reduction in the required time per test.
Analytical Data and Information Management
Advances in instrument automation produced substantial improvements in analytical throughput and information flow. Each instrument was capable of analysing more samples and producing ever-increasing amounts of data per day. Each existed as autonomous and independent systems, with little or no connections between them. The collation and management of all the data from the wide variety of automated instruments became the new bottleneck in operations. The instruments produced data faster than laboratory staff could collate, calculate, interpret, report, and manage all the results.
Laboratory Information Management Systems
LIMS emerged to address needs for managing the totality of the laboratory's analytical testing data and information. They were initially developed by individual organizations during the late 1960s and emerged as commercial products in the early 1980s.
In 1984, eight commercially available LIMS were available. By 1991 over 50 companies claimed to offer LIMS Products. One estimate put the 1991 worldwide LIMS market at 130 million US dollars, with over half the revenues from after market support and services.
Instrument Data Systems
Specialized instrument data systems also emerged during this period. They included a combination of hardware and software for the capture, processing, and management of data from one or more instruments. These data systems worked with instruments from several vendors. Capabilities for the transfer of information to a LIMS were also included. Developments have been most notable in dedicated data systems for chromatography.
Structural Information Management
Many organizations, notably those involved with research and product development, needed to manage their collection of information on the properties of specific compounds of interest. In many cases, studies and tests were needlessly repeated because previously analytical data could not be found. Programs emerged to manage the organization's collective information base on specific substances. They organized data according to the compounds' unique three-dimensional structures. This prevented confusion between isomers, which are substances with the same molecular formula, but with different physical structures and properties.
Scientific Word Processing
The written dissemination of technical information involves a combination of text, equations, structural drawings, charts, graphs, spectra, and chromatograms. These elements are needed for scientific documentation such as publications, study reports, product specifications, test methods, manufacturing instructions, and procedures.
Technical documentation requires provisions for special Greek or non-English characters, mathematical symbols, and multi-level subscripts and superscripts. The initial word processing software was incapable of meeting the unique needs of scientists. They handled standard text only. The other elements had to be created manually.
In the late 1980s, commercial software emerged that permitted the integration of text, mathematical expressions, structural drawings, and graphics from other applications. This substantially reduced the effort and improved the speed of written technical communications.
Robotics
In the early 1980s, industrial robots were adapted to the routine preparation of samples for analytical measurement. The robot presented an alternative to the time-consuming and potentially hazardous manual manipulations of samples and reagents by laboratory staff. The scope of robot use expanded to include wet chemistry procedures, instrument analysis, and communication with other laboratory systems. It was found that robots were suitable for high volume and well defined testing operations.
Data Analysis
Initially, all data analysis was performed by using software programs written by each laboratory. Commercial data analysis software emerged in the late 1970s. The offerings included programs for statistical, quality, and graphical data analysis. The variety and quantity of software packages grew as newer data analysis techniques emerged.
Modelling and Simulations
The use of modelling and simulation software became prominent in the 1980s. Practitioners included businesses committed to speeding up their product development cycles and improving their utilization of technical research resources. The software incorporated the knowledge from theoretical chemistry to, predict the properties (such as spectra, reactivity, and receptor site interactions) of selected compounds.
Modelling and simulation software substantially reduced the organization's overall product development effort. This approach rapidly screened numerous compounds and only identified those that were worthy of more detailed study. Once identified, only the most promising substances were synthesized and subjected to further laboratory studies.
Information Retrieval
Every technical organization relies on the knowledge developed by scientists from other laboratories and other organizations. Public information is disseminated through numerous journals, periodicals, and other publications. Information content providers are organizations who read, summarize, index, and store the key contents of information residing in the public domain. On-line services are offered by businesses who provide remote access to these databases. Scientists utilize these services to secure knowledge on current and past developments on any defined topic of interest. These systems save the scientist considerable time in searching the literature to maintain an awareness of current developments and newer techniques.
2 LIMS Case Studies
Selected case studies of LIMS implementations are presented in this section. Included is a presentation of their laboratory environment, the technical approach taken, and the benefits realized.
Ralston Purina Company
The Ralston Purina Company (St. Louis, MO, USA) LIMS project was initiated in 1968. It covers 300 users at a central research facility and branch laboratories. They collectively perform 450 000 analyses per year with 600 different procedures. Components of the Ralston Purina system included a LIMS, an instrument data acquisition and control system, and an experimental data analysis system.
The LIMS software and the experimental data analysis systems reside on an IBM mainframe. The LIMS handles the entry, storage, manipulation, retrieval, and printing of data on samples, sample loads, and work schedules. The experimental data analysis system provides for statistical analysis and specialized report generation. The instrument data acquisition and control system is based on PDP-11 minicomputers. It supports the direct data acquisition from a variety of laboratory instruments.
Implementation of the systems required approximately 25 years of effort on software development. Estimated benefits of the system included projected labour savings of 15 to 20 years of effort per year.
Mobil Research and Development Corporation
The Mobil Research and Development Corporation (Paulsboro, NJ, USA) LIMS was initiated in 1969. The analytical services laboratory supports annual workloads of 60 000 samples and 200 000 tests performed according to 800 procedures. Testing is performed by 49 technicians. The LIMS was implemented on a DEC-20 mainframe. It provides reports on sample status, laboratory workloads, backlogs, and analytical results. A data analysis package allows researchers to establish individual data bases to create custom plots and to analyse data trends. Data transfer from automated instruments occurs through software on PDP-11 minicomputers.
The automation effort has increased productivity by approximately 64% during the 1969–1983 period. The laboratory is handling a 25% workload increase with 15 fewer technicians.
Calgon Water Management
The analytical laboratories at Calgon Water Management (Pittsburgh, PA, USA) initiated a LIMS feasibility study in 1982. The analytical services laboratory performed 200 000 tests on 40 000 samples per year. Implementation of the system commenced in 1984 based on hardware and software from a commercial LIMS supplier. Customized extensions to the commercial software were added to accommodate the laboratory's work flow and management reporting. Major functions provided by the system included sample logging, sample status tracking, test scheduling, analytical data entry, calculations, results approval, sample reporting, partial results reporting, workload monitoring, and turnaround reports.
Implementation of the initially targeted functions was completed in late 1986, an elapsed time of 18 months. The effort involved a task force consisting of laboratory staff with the assistance of corporate Management Information Systems and the vendor. The laboratory experienced an overall productivity improvement of 30%, with payback of the system occurring within 1 year.
Construction Technology Laboratories, Inc.
The Construction Technology Laboratories, Inc. (Skokie, IL, USA) provides cement-related testing services to the construction industry. It also provides contract research and development work on new products and processes. Much of the testing supports litigation. The laboratory performs 20 000 determinations on 5000 samples each year.
In 1988 the first attempt at automation employed a Macintosh spreadsheet program to track sample flow through the laboratory. It allowed the supervisor to monitor samples in the laboratory and the tests to be performed on each sample. However, the spreadsheet did not allow for scheduling and status tracking.
The initial system was replaced with a series of Macintosh-based databases for project management, sample logging, sample label printing, and invoicing. However, significant time was still required for supervisors to schedule tests and assign work.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from LIMS: Implementation and Management by Allen S. Nakagawa. Copyright © 1994 The Royal Society of Chemistry. Excerpted by permission of The Royal Society of Chemistry.
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