LIMS for contract laboratories

Industry is looking more and more to outsourcing its analytical and testing needs to contract laboratories. This places on those laboratories a need for a flexible yet structured and error-free means of handling and reporting sample information and results.

A LIMS system can provide all this, but some laboratories have been reluctant to invest because of concerns about the time and costs associated with specification, commissioning and the perception that they need a tailor-made system.

The QSI WinLIMS technology is claimed to have developed and matured to the extent that all the functionality required by contract laboratories, be they environmental, micro or QA/QC, is available out of the box.

The system's reporting tools include distributed web reporting, whereby a number of a laboratory's customers can simultaneously interrogate the system directly, online, for their results.

This is totally secure so that customers have access only to their own information.

The clients can even remotely log in samples, saving time and cutting out transcription errors.

The standard functionality combines all the flexibility needed to handle ad hoc and routine customer requests in a structured yet accessible and secure way.

Sample and business information are integrated so that invoicing and details like addresses and contact details are securely linked to sample data like perhaps a customer's own special methodology or QC limit values.