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.
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Thermo Fisher Watson LIMS
Score 5.0 out of 10
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Thermo Fisher Scientific offers Watson LIMS, a laboratory information management system designed to support bioanalytic studies and research.
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.
Globally, the system is not very well suited. Lack of appropriate interfaces for instrument detectors is a good example. Watson lims can maintain sample traceability correctly however, it is clearly not designed for high throughput sample analysis. Our laboratory global efficiency significantly decreased upon Watson Lims implementation. New ''Analytical samples'' functionality was now well designed and have a lot of limitations. The Software validation provided and executed by the vendor is weak and showed major execution error also with poor documentation practice. Very disappointing.
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.
Watson have a lot of things to improve. The software has a old user interface absolutely not up to the current software standard. The backend is even worst.
The software has a old user interface absolutely not up to the current software standard. The backend is even worst. The system crash regularly.
The licensing service do not works properly, half of the time we need to restart the licensing server to provide access to new users.
The process that needs to be used to allow samples analysis a result reporting is rigid and clearly not enough flexible.
Multiple excel macro were internally created to cover aspect not supported by the software.
Interface between Thermo Fisher Watson Lims and Thermo Fisher Q Exactive instrument do not works. Watson Lims cannot interface neither with current version of WinNonLin software. This is a major lack.
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.
The only positive impact is for client facing. Watson lims is well known in the industry and the purchase of this software increase the credibility of our organization.
The ROI is a disaster. First: The cost of the software is significantly to high, the user licences cost also contribute in the ROI disaster. Second: The implementation of watson lims significantly decrease our laboratory efficiency.
