LIMSzine
The following case study highlights the issues involved when migrating
from a home-built to a commercial LIMS. It details the East Bay Municipal
Utility District (EBMUD) laboratory services division [Oakland, CA] decision
to opt for a commercial package when its home-built LIMS based on a VAX
technology was no longer adequate.
An outdated laboratory system often causes more problems than it solves.
When the home-built VAX system created in 1985 and used by the East Bay
Municipal Utility District (EBMUD) laboratory services division [Oakland,
CA] could no longer meet the needs of either the lab or their clients, replacement
was the only feasible answer. The laboratory services division is a full-service,
production-oriented, environmental laboratory. It is certified by the State
of California Environmental Accrediatation in 14 separate fields of testing.
"Our charter is to perform analysis and reporting, and maintain the
database for the district," states Chip Hellier, Supervising Chemist.
"With our home-built LIMS, we had very slow computer response times,
no sign-offs, no status tracking in the labs, and we couldn't do CLP-type
functions." The system was basically a lab results database with some
LIMS functions such as sample logging and results approval. "It was
a compromise between the needs of the lab and the people who needed to use
the information," Hellier continues. "As with all compromises,
there was a lot of dissatisfaction all around."
One of the largest public utility laboratories in the U.S., EBMUD's lab
occupies 30,000 square feet and operates 10 hours a day, 365 days a year
to track water and wastewater quality. The district addresses public health
and environment protection needs, serving over 1.2 million people with the
water system and approximately 750,000 people with the wastewater system.
It provides high-quality analytical data in a variety of different matrices,
including drinking water, wastewater, reclaimed water, receiving water,
air, soil, sludge and hazardous waste.
The laboratory is divided into five work sections: organic chemistry, inorganic
chemistry, biology, metals, and client and analytical support. The organic
chemistry section staff uses gas chromatography/mass spectrometers (GC/MS)
and gas chromatography (GC) to routinely identify 300 organic compounds.
A high-performance liquid chromatograph (HPLC) tests for non-volatile organics
and the latest in gel permeation clean-up (GPC) extraction technology is
used to prepare air, water and solid samples for analysis. As regulations
require increasingly lower levels of detection and clients demand more informaiton
from more sources, the section relies heavily on advancements in technical
instrumentation and automation. Its workload has increased an average of
20% annually.
Employing a functions-oriented system was critical to the district's productivity.
Responding to changing state and federal regulations, the laboratory is
working with others to develop the latest analytical methods for operations
and compliance monitoring. Today, its analytical services produce nearly
600,000 analytical records from the 80,000 samples received annually. The
LIMS in place before the current system could not meet those kinds of demands.
Requirements Determination
EBMUD's current LIMS project officially began in 1989 with the formation
of user group teams. The lab staff and their clients researched solutions
and determined that they wanted to use a relational database, current technology,
and distributed processing so the system could be moved away from having
all data reside on the host. The teams also determined that they wanted
the ability to inexpensively customize the system themselves, and to be
able to migrate to different platforms rather than stay wedded to a single
system forever.
"Essentially everyone wanted more control over the system," Hellier
recalls. "Everyone wanted to be able to pull up information at the
user's PC not at the host. No more dumb terminals! And, we needed more than
a LIMS -- we also needed appropriate equipment, such as color and graphics
capabilities."
In addition, because at least 60% of the workload is pre-scheduled, EBMUD
wanted a system that could project sample loads in advance and perform pre-scheduling.
The district handles three types of projects: regulatory compliance, special
projects and operational support. Regulatory compliance is defined by what
needs to be sampled, tested and reported on a regular basis. Special projects
are usually short term special studies for evaluation purposes, such as
watershed studies or sediment testing in of the San Francisco Bay. Operational
support addresses EBMUD process controls, and includes trend tracking. These
projects involve testing at more than 1800 sample locations. The new LIMS
would need to be accessible by all locations.
System Selection
EBMUD sought a vendor who understood the environmental and CLP markets.
According to Hellier, "even though we don't do CLP, we have similar
documentation requirements. In 1991 we had a short list of potential vendors,
but found that most of those were focused on the lab and we needed a system
for more than just the lab. We selected ACS [Automated Compliance Systems]
in May 1992 because we felt that they understood the environmental market
and also met our needs with their Labplan product which combined all aspects
of the integration into a single package."
The contract was signed in February 1993, the functional requirements were
developed, and from those a project plan. Within three months the hardware
and software were installed and undergoing customization. In June 1994,
the old system was turned off.
Project Management
"We have a large number of different clients from different groups
that wanted to be able to manage and track what they needed. So there are
lots of informal approaches to the system," explains Hellier. "It
meant that we needed to define the chain-of-custody and that there was a
big emphasis on sample control and sign-offs. We felt that sample control,
not sample receiving was the critical point to doing things right. We have
this now with our new LIMS. We can also check for discrepancies and track
items like critical hold times."
To meet the requirement for pre-scheduling, the LIMS imposes a date 30 days
out from the accepted/approved start date for a sample project. While EBMUD
often knows a year ahead where samples are needed, they also wanted the
flexibility to move dates around within the system.
By addressing the set-up and definition of projects up-front, each project
is expedited overall. "We now have very detailed specs for requirements
and were able to identify and reduce overlapping requests for work,"
Hellier declares. "This gives us a way to get project support requests
rolling, while management, cost and workload concerns are addressed via
features such as sample schedules, reporting, notification, and QA/QC."
The new LIMS also performs a number of background and automatic processes.
For example, each night the system generates workload requests for samples.
And, when a sample is more than five days over the expected due date, the
system flags it. Once completed, samples are submitted and the system automatically
notifies the appropriate labs via email for review and approval prior to
processing.
Hellier is enthusiastic about the new system's capabilities. "Now we
can accurately address items such as concentration ranges, regulatory limits
requirements, instrumentation requirements, and test requirements for everything
that enters the facility. And, out of range data are flagged before project
results are approved and sent to the client or user."
"With the new LIMS," he adds, "we can distinguish between
analysis and the analyte from an analysis. Before there was no hierarchy
that could distinguish the test from the results of the test. We can also
now cover priority pollutants, and when we analyze different components
it's easy to just modify the methodology."
Conclusion
The migration from a home-built to a commercial LIMS resulted in a streamlined
system with the ability to provide greater information accuracy. Error rates
due to inaccurate data status information were 25%; with the new LIMS, EBMUD
now has error rates under 1%. By enabling the ability to forecast requirements,
EBMUD has been able to improve overall capacity and increase production
levels.
The LIMS upgrade occurred during a $10 million expansion project which has
made the facility one of the best equipped public utility laboratories in
the country. By allowing work units throughout the district to access and
download approved analytical data, the LIMS has greatly improved the flow
of communication and increased production levels.