Integration Of LIMS Offers Compelling Advantages For The Production Environment
Integration Of LIMS Offers Compelling Advantages For The Production Environment
SampleManager 2004 makes public debut at Pittcon 2004
By Jason Simpson
LIMS Product Manager
Under increasing pressure to harmonize their business processes, science-based organizations are taking measures to standardize on computing applications such as Laboratory Information Management Systems (LIMS) – and also to integrate these with enterprise platforms and systems. Often different locations within the same organization will employ information management systems from a variety of vendors for the same purpose. Industry mergers and acquisitions have only added to this diversity. For these reasons, it is no surprise that the standardization and integration of systems typically represents around 30% of IT budgets.
Organizations today require LIMS that are more than laboratory-centric sample and report management tools, but strategic solutions closely tied to broader business processes. LIMS are now required to play a central role in the integration and distribution of scientific information throughout the global enterprise.
Large-scale, multi-site production environments provide a specific example where the role of LIMS has evolved considerably. In many organizations, LIMS are now instrumental in the transfer of reliable, quality-related laboratory data throughout the enterprise. Among the benefits of this are the optimization of processes, improvements in quality control and the more effective deployment of resources.
Within a manufacturing environment, effective knowledge management through the integration of data can help improve process efficiency and quality control, increase product yields and accelerate product development. LIMS can provide ready access to information about the process that comes from collecting parameters from disparate enterprise applications – for example, throughout a twenty hour cycle, from raw materials to the finished product.
Benefits of LIMS/ERP Integration
In large-scale production environments, Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems such as R/3 Enterprise from SAP Software AG are considered the integration hub for other systems. This view of ERP is understandable as its functionality has evolved to the extent it now impacts upon every area of business.
In the QA laboratory of a production facility, the initial step for assigning work to the lab starts in the ERP system, typically triggered by warehouse stock levels. This is transformed into a work order for production, which in turn simultaneously triggers the LIMS to make a quality assessment and the MES (Manufacturing Execution System) to produce the material according to the recipe.
Typical interaction between the LIMS and ERP is to download the quality data plus any reference data to LIMS, and to upload either summary results or disposition decisions to ERP. Once a Quality Manager enters results in the LIMS and the parameters are checked, they can be automatically sent to the ERP for further processing.
To facilitate the distribution of consistent quality information and to enhance operational efficiencies, organizations are integrating specialist, functionally rich ‘enterprise-centric’ LIMS with their ERP system deployments. This ensures they can expedite the bi-directional data flow between the laboratory and manufacturing, streamline data handling, and integrate data collecting and reporting.
Modern standard LIMS/ERP interfaces have become increasingly flexible and user friendly. Progressive LIMS vendors, for example, have developed user-driven mapping functions as part of their ERP integration solutions. These offer the LIMS user easy access to required information from the ERP in a format that relates directly to LIMS entities with which they are familiar.
Benefits of LIMS/PIMS Integration
A further integration step is to interface the LIMS data with Process Information Management Systems (PIMS). This allows on-line/at-line process information to be matched with off-line tests – typically by using sampling point and time-stamps to match the ‘tags’ within the PIMS. The obvious benefit is that it becomes possible to compare on-line analyzer results with analytical data generated within the laboratory, thus speeding the process, and allowing timely corrective action.
Modern LIMS-PIMS integration solutions allow validated analytical information to be directly and immediately available to the systems and managers involved in the manufacturing process, resulting in better control of process plant operations, reduced product loss and greater productivity. As measurement data is transmitted from LIMS to PIMS, plant engineers or operators can analyze and track data trends and make decisions based on data from different locations throughout the production process.
What is the Next Step in LIMS Integration?
The interfacing of LIMS with corporate systems such as ERP and PIMS has until relatively recently been considered as full integration by many organizations. As point solutions, reconfiguration or upgrading is required when new versions of either system are deployed. However limited, there also remains an element of human interaction with the data. And although communication among the systems is virtually instantaneous, the information is still available only in separate systems. The real challenge is to enable effective communication among the enterprise’s many different systems.
Thermo Electron Corporation is addressing this challenge with the introduction of a significant new release of its flagship SampleManager LIMS; a version which makes its public debut at Pittcon this week. This version is designed to serve as a corporate standard for all labs across the enterprise and offers the capability for comprehensive integration with ERP and PIMS. Web services are another important component of SampleManager 2004 for organizations seeking to integrate and leverage their informatics solutions. A combination of functionality and web-based technology provide the route to a fully integrated scenario that allows single data entry points – e.g., data entered into one system – to become available within other enterprise systems as required.
Enabling Technologies for System Integration – XML & Web Services
Web services are built using a group of XML (eXtensible Markup Language) standards, thereby providing complete platform independence. This allows an organization to deploy the Web service on the server platform of its choice, and to use the Web service from any application written in any programming language. Applications can be Web-based or thick clients; the only requirement is the ability to manipulate XML and to post it to an Internet URL or an internal intranet.
Given this flexibility, it is no surprise that many corporations are looking to utilize XML-based Web services as the means to integrate a multitude of applications built on disparate technologies. To accomplish this, however, the solution design must go beyond simply adding Web interfaces to existing applications for data accessibility. While providing user access across geographic and business boundaries brings distinct advantages, this should not be confused with the process efficiencies and productivity to be gained from truly integrating the various systems within the organization.
With the advent of web-based clients, it is now possible for systems to be integrated at the client level using a hybrid Web interface – which allows users from multiple disciplines to interact with the parts of each system that are relevant to them, using a common mechanism. An example would be the ability to see process parameters and analytical trends in same web view, and to make a disposition decision in ERP from an authorization in LIMS.
If all applications within the enterprise are interfaced using a common standard, it becomes a much simpler operation to add additional applications, or to upgrade or replace applications, without also requiring significant remediation of the interfaces. This approach also significantly increases the flexibility of large multi-site organizations, since it becomes possible to exchange data quickly and easily between systems. The same data format is, in effect, passed around each system with the individual interfaces choosing the relevant data within the set.
Web services and XML technology in tandem with enterprise LIMS such as SampleManager look set to revolutionize LIMS integration with corporate applications. If embraced, organizations will be better equipped to bring products to market faster, achieve a higher return on investment, and maintain a competitive edge.
Thermo will highlight SampleManager LIMS at its exhibit at Pittcon in Chicago. For information on Thermo’s comprehensive suite of informatics products, visit booth #848 in the Laboratory Informatics exhibit area and booth #1475 in the main exhibit hall. Additionally, Thermo informatics specialists are giving technical papers at Pittcon 2004 on a variety of issues relating to LIMS enterprise integration, information management, validation and compliance issues.
For further press information please contact: Kath Darlington on email pr@scottmail.co.uk
Please send all leads from this editorial FAO: Adrian Fergus on e-mail info@thermoinformatics.com
For more information please call Thermo Electron on 866-463-6522 or e-mail info@thermoinformatics.com
About Informatics
A worldwide leader in laboratory informatics software and services, Thermo Electron offers LIMS, chromatography data systems, analytical data archival, and instrument integration solutions to customers in a wide range of regulated and non-regulated industries such as pharmaceuticals, biotechnology, petrochemicals, chemicals, and food and beverage. We also provide desktop spectroscopy software for data processing, data management, 3D data viewing, spectral reference databases, and chemometrics. Thermo delivers solutions in 23 languages in over 50 countries. For more information, visit www.thermo.com/informatics
About Thermo Electron Corporation
A world leader in high-tech instruments, Thermo Electron Corporation helps life science, laboratory, and industrial customers advance scientific knowledge, enable drug discovery, improve manufacturing processes, and protect people and the environment with instruments, scientific equipment, services, and software solutions. Based in Waltham, Massachusetts, Thermo Electron has revenues of more than $2 billion, and employs approximately 11,000 people in 30 countries worldwide. For more information, visit www.thermo.com
For further press information please contact: Kath Darlington, PR Director, The Scott Partnership, The Old Barn, Holly House Estate, CRANAGE, Middlewich, Cheshire CW10 9LT, United Kingdom Tel: + 44 1606 837787 Fax: +44 1606 837757 E-mail: pr@scottmail.co.uk
