LIMS & ELNs:

"Bet the Farm" Applications

Basic Knowledge / Information / Data flow model.
The models can be tailored to both R&D and testing laboratories. In addition, they can be used to show how work in one laboratory relates to other labs and departments.
These models can be used as a basis for defining product requirements, their selection and implementation.

Planning for Lab Data & Information Management Products

Using the phrase "Bet the Farm" is not intended to scare someone, but rather to put things into perspective. Laboratory Information Management Systems (LIMS) and Electronic Laboratory Notebooks (ELNs) are data and information aggregators: they are the point where the data and information in a lab comes together, and as such are at the top of the hierarchy of software systems in the lab. These systems can be expensive to purchase, install, tailor to your needs, and validate. That, plus training, can take up a substantial part of your labs budget.

On the positive side, these same applications can transform your labs operations. Make it easier to manage the lab & its workflow, find and work with data and information, and over the long-term reduce operating costs. They can also improve your ability to meet regulatory requirements and meet legal challenges to your labs work.

One consequence of these products - and any others like them - is that once installed, they cement lab processes in software. Software can be changed, but making changes can be expensive, particularly if extensive modifications are made to the underlying systems.

If these systems are well planned, they will enhance the labs ability to work. Poorly implemented systems will be nagging problem and a roadblock to a labs progress - the basis for the "bet the farm" phrase.

How do you plan?

1. Understand your laboratory. How does work get done? Does it work the way you want it to work? If you could change things, what changes would you make?
   
2. Build an operational model of how you want your lab to work: where does data come from? What happens to it? Who needs access to it [both inside and outside your lab]and how should that access be provided?
   
3. Build an operational mode of how your lab currently operates. If the two models are different, design a migration plan.
   
4. What do you expect a product to do for your lab? Develop product requirements based on how you want your lab to function. If you do it based on current operations - and those operations differ from an ideal situation - making changes will be difficult.
   
5. Avoid extensive software changes to products if possible - they may not only lock you into a vendor / product, but a particular version of the product.

This course ...

... will provide you with tools and understanding to address these issues.

© 2009 Institute for Laboratory Automation, Groton, Mass.