Blaze Systems Announces LIMS Success at New Season Foods, Inc.

Newark, DE.  August 20, 2011.  Blaze Systems Corporation today announced that New Season Foods Inc, a subsidiary of Knorr Foods Company, Japan (part of Ajinomoto Group, a Japanese-based global company) has selected and implemented BlazeLIMS and BlazeLink as its laboratory automation solution in support of its primary manufacturing laboratory. New Season Foods produces dried and dehydrated vegetables.

Because of the seasonal nature of their process, the NSF laboratory must operate effectively in the face of wide swings in the demand for laboratory testing. Personnel and instrument resources must be managed to maintain a high reliability and dependability of testing in the face of these swings in demand and in personnel.  BlazeLIMS is providing important process improvements to facilitate this. 

First of all, barcode labels are printed for sample containers and for aliquots to insure positive sample/aliquot identification throughout the workflow, which involved the routing of samples to multiple labs and instruments.

In addition, BlazeLink, Blaze System’s instrument interfacing product, is providing tightly coupled bi-directional interfacing between BlazeLIMS and a variety of laboratory instruments requiring instrument specific protocols.  BlazeLink collects and coordinates the aliquot barcode id on aliquot containers with the instrument results for pH, weight, color, sugar, etc., automatically processing the results into the BlazeLIMS database as they become available, while also providing comprehensive calculations.  This automation is resulting in a substantial productivity and throughput benefit.

Another process improvement was provided by automated production and delivery of results reports and notifications using the flexibility and configurability of Excel as integrated with BlazeLIMS.

In addition, BlazeLIMS is performing automated scheduling and management of environmental monitoring sampling as required for the food and beverage industries, and is also managing, tracking, recording and enforcing instrument calibration and maintenance protocols.
Carolyn Mayer, Laboratory Manager at New Season Foods says “We are very pleased with the way BlazeLIMS has met or exceeded our expectations in streamlining our lab and improving our ability to scale up to very high seasonal throughputs.  We not only achieved our initial goals with BlazeLIMS but are also continually improving by employing additional features.  BlazeLIMS provided the features we needed without the higher costs and uncertainties of customization.  A key ingredient in our success has also been the superior hotline support provided by Blaze Systems.”

Larry DeHeer, President of Blaze Systems says “We take every LIMS installation personally, and we are very pleased with the ways in which New Season Foods has employed our products and services to improve their business performance.”

About Blaze Systems
Blaze Systems Corporation is headquartered in Newark, DE, offering a comprehensive portfolio of products and services for the laboratory, including a full featured and broadly used laboratory information management system (BlazeLIMS) for both the small and large enterprise, instrument interfacing (BlazeLink) for a wide variety of instruments, inventory management (BlazeInventory) for the lab or enterprise, shelf life study software (BlazeStability), and services for installation, training, and configuration assistance.  We deliver big featured LIMS products with a small company persona that is highly personal.  Our successful solutions and world-class services are the result of 17+ years of experience in laboratory informatics.  www.blazesystems.com.

About New Season Foods
New Season Foods Inc. is a wholly owned subsidiary of Knorr Foods Company, Japan (part of Ajinomoto Group, a Tokyo-based global manufacturer) and is headquartered in Forest Grove, OR.  New Season Foods produces sweet corn powder and other vegetable ingredients primarily for instant soups. The company uses agricultural products from the Willamette Valley and the Columbia River Basin. http://www.newseasonfoods.com/.