Saturday 23 June 2018

Understanding LIMS And How They Help Laboratories

By Andrew Thompson


Anyone who has ever worked in a lab is familiar with or has at least heard of an information system. They come in many forms and go by a number of different names, but no matter what they're called, they are always essential in order for the scientists to carry out the duties and for the lab to carry out all of its functions. LIMS stands for laboratory information management system, but some other popular titles for it are laboratory information system (LIS) and laboratory management system (LMS).

It is out of necessity that every lab that hopes to perform serious scientific research is using a system like this nowadays. Facilities like these simply wouldn't be able to function without one, due to the fact that modern labs are now running through huge amounts of information every single day. There are many functions of these types of systems that serve to mainly make the tasks that scientists carry out easier and more convenient, but in other ways, they raise the capabilities of the research facility.

Tracking workflow is a major task in most laboratories simply because of how many people are often working in them and how much specific information is required. It is good to know exactly what happened, who did it, when, and any other information that can be given. This is often what makes the difference between an experiment failing and it going well.

When information is put in manually, there is so much more room for error than when it is put in automatically. Although some people are very meticulous and extremely careful, there is just so much that can go wrong when records are kept this way. All it takes is for a number or decimal point to be put in the wrong place, or for a file to be misplaced, for disaster to occur, and that's why an automated method is best.

Specialty labs are ones that focus on a specific type of science or experiments. In these cases, a tool that is customized to their purposes is often needed. This makes it so the somewhat different needs of these labs can be met more easily.

Information systems have changed a lot over the years. Mainly, they have become much more advanced. This is both due to the help of science and due to the advancing needs of scientists.

These systems were first used to track samples. Scientists relied on them heavily in the early days of experimentation. Now the uses of information systems have grown immensely.

There can be no doubting that people come in many different varieties, and the same goes for scientists, scientific research facilities, and even the different branches of science itself. As such, many different scientists don't exactly agree on what makes a laboratory information system. There are a number of slightly different definitions, so if a person is about to start working in a new lab, a helpful thing to do is learn exactly what the scientists in this lab mean when they say LIS, LMS, LIMS, or whatever other acronyms they're using to mean the information system of the laboratory.




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