Matrix LIMS at City of Henderson, NV
Organization
The City of Henderson (population 277,500) is located adjacent to Las Vegas and along with North Las Vegas, Las Vegas and Clarke County, discharges treated wastewater into Lake Mead, via the “Las Vegas Wash”. As they also draw their drinking water from the lake, the analysis of water samples by the utility serving the city is of very high importance.
The utility laboratory analyzes environmental samples of treated wastewater for regulatory reporting to both state and federal programs, process control samples from it’s wastewater treatment and water treatment plant as well as water samples from new connections to underground utilities for the Department of Public Works. The lab has a staff of 14, including Michael Arrasate the QA/LIMS Manager and Dana La Rance the Lab Manager. It performs over 54,000 tests per year on over 24,000 samples of all types.
Challenges
The lab originally had an Access database that was built before the city expanded at a rapid rate. All data was entered manually and it was not very user-friendly. In 2004, The city decided to replace this system with a new LIMS with the following primary requirements:
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As many results as possible should be transferred directly from the instrument to the LIMS without transcription. This should reduce the labor required and eliminate the transcription errors.
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It should be user friendly and configurable such that the laboratory need not change their processes and methods to use the LIMS.
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It should be easy to produce both routine and ad-hoc reports by all categories of users.
After an initial search, three systems were each installed for a 90 day period, for which the city paid the vendors and Matrix Plus was selected as it performed the best in this test, as determined by all types of users.
It was implemented on time and within budget.
Benefits Achieved
Mike Arraste stated that:
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Most results are transferred electronically from the instrument to the LIMS, except for the manually read tests such as microbiology, improving efficiency and greatly reducing errors.
Laboratory productivity has improved such that 14 people are now able to do the work that used to require 16 people.
Via a robust chain of custody function and comprehensive audit trail, they have complete traceability of all samples, reagents and standards.
As the system is so configurable, Arrasate has been able to build “custom” modules to extend the LIMS use outside of the laboratory, such that plant operators can log in their own samples and enter their own test results for their process control samples, speeding the reporting process. He describes himself as a “lab guy not a computer guy”. Extending the use outside the lab has been an incremental bonus to the utility, as it has enabled information to be shared much more easily. Plant operators can obtain the information they need to make rapid corrections to conditions that may give rise to problems. Public Works Staff is able to print their own reports as and when they need them—lab staff need not intervene. Arrasate continued, “I am able to do it without incurring charges and delays from the vendor or IT —an advantage to the utility under current constraints.”
Post-sale Experience
Arrasate says that “Support is great—Technical Support is very responsive and when we call, we speak to a real person; emails are answered promptly with fast resolution of issues.”
Tom Stratford—Senior Systems Support Analyst for the utility said, “In general support is better than most and the quality of the product is good.”
Dana La Rance—Lab Manager states, “I really like that system—I usually would not like to be in sales, but I could sell Matrix because I believe in this product and it works!”
Zumatrix, Inc.
29 Simpson Lane
Falmouth, MA 02540
508-457-7911
www.zumatrix.com
info@zumatrix.com
