LabVantage Solutions headquartered in New Jersey offers their flagship laboratory information management system (LIMS): LabVantage. The platform emphasizes flexibility, and supports research and development labs, quality control, biopharmaceutical, and other labs with operational support and workflow automation.
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Thermo Fisher SampleManager LIMS
Score 10.0 out of 10
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Thermo Fisher Scientific supports laboratory research with supplies and equipment but also software; the Thermo Fisher SampleManager LIMS is a widely used laboratory information management system dedicated to data and resource management, as well as automation and operational support.
Probably better suited for true lab users. It is less suited for managing data requests. Most departments in our organization have abandoned allowing customers to enter their own requests because it is too complex and cumbersome.
While being an active user at MTF, LIMS was great in being able to complete testing and other daily tasks that would have taken much longer without this system. It enabled a great overall satisfaction to be able to pinpoint who performed each task based on time stamping and avoided many errors regarding lot numbers, expiration dates, and equipment IDs. Thus, being able to validate and report data out to other departments was ALOT faster, which is highly important being that much of our testing was heavily time sensitive and crucial to sustaining life. However, although LIMS improved the companies overall effectiveness and efficiency, it had some minor issues that created more than one problem. Being that I am no longer employed at MTF, time studies performed utilizing LIMS while testing resulted in the loss of five positions within the laboratory. It's great that it's so fast, but caused controversy by eliminating employees who were highly proficient while using the LIMS software. Also during usage, it would crash numerous times, which would either delay the input of data or completely wipe it out. On several occasions, we risked having to declare deviations on the fact that data was permanently deleted and never to be able to be retained again. This also resulted in a loss of millions of dollars due to tissue and bone samples being thrown away because there was no data to support they were able to be used in surgeries.
The currently LIMS system is web based. Unless you have java programmers on staff that can create new 'workflows', you will pay for the enhanced functionality
LIMS can be an extremely slow system if not updated to the most current version, which can also cause the system to crash in the midst of recording/testing.
Disables certain features to be accessible depending on user status.
Does not always adhere to set protocols or standards made for specific data input.
We didn’t really have choice to use any other system. We probably would be able to better serve our customers with an issue tracking or help desk system.
Thermo Fisher Scientific LIMS is fantastic in that it has a wide range to store and change data regarding instrumentation, reagents, equipment, materials, and testing layouts. Information can be backed up for quite some time, which is great in the instance that data needs to be pulled immediately, regardless when it was last accessed. It also enables testing to follow a better flow through following the way in which the set up is displayed within the LIMS system.
