LIMSzine
The following column highlights some of the underlying issues which emerged
at the recent 1996 Pittsburgh Conference that are driving LIMS development.
It's interesting to note that Laboratory Information Management Systems
(LIMS) were one of the most requested products at the Product Locator kiosks
during the Pittsburgh Conference (Pittcon) in Chicago, IL from March 3-7,
1996. Has the realization that software, not hardware, is the key to the
lab's future finally caught hold? Certainly there is increased attention
on LIMS -- particularly through the UMIX (User-Manufacturer Information
eXchange) session on "The Power of LIMS in the Year 2000" prior
to the start of Pittcon -- but it comes at a time when there isn't much
actual change happening to LIMS products. As noted LIMS guru Raymond Dessy
puts it, LIMS are at a crossroads.
Change Drivers
If LIMS are at a crossroads, it's in part because they're relying on other
industries to instigate the next wave of change.
The biggest change drivers are the changes in the technologies used by the
lab. This was particularly evident during the UMIX session where many of
the panelists stated that the incorporation of new technologies into LIMS
will drive the evolution of LIMS. Such changes include increased integration
of the lab with the enterprise mainly through enhanced communications and
Information Technology (IT) capabilities, new development technologies,
and the quickly evolving functionality on the part of database vendors such
as Oracle. All these technologies can be migrated to and adopted by the
laboratory.
Several press conferences highlighted trends in the analytical marketplace,
but Beckman Instruments (Fullerton, CA) zeroed in on the impact of those
trends on LIMS. Leland McArthy, Beckman's director of lab automation operations,
stressed that "all applications which use LIMS, such as Quality Assurance,
are mission critical." He went on to point out that the trend is toward
enterprise-wide solutions, particularly because of FDA scrutiny and the
need to integrate systems throughout the enterprise. "The three main
drivers are regulatory, productivity and simplification."
Because LIMS are migrating to an enterprise-wide solution as opposed to
being the laboratory solution they have been in the past, McArthy believes
that there are three things which must be done for the enterprise-wide LIMS
to succeed -- criteria that are not particularly issues when the LIMS is
more lab-centric. "An enterprise-wide LIMS requires a long-term partnership,
program management, and project velocity." Project velocity, he explains,
is critical. "Getting it done eventually is a fine thing; getting it
done quickly is a competitive advantage."
This is one reason why client/server architecture is becoming such a hot
ticket: it provides an intuitive Windows user interface and distributed
processing, it's scalable, and it takes advantage of open architecture.
What this means is that the LIMS is easy to learn, it's easy to upgrade,
and it's easy to use with other software. Essentially the clock is ticking
in the lab and the need for more time -- particularly more productive time
-- is driving LIMS technology.
Speculation Abounds
Beyond the speculation on the technologies that will be used by the lab
is the image of what the lab will be like as a work environment. According
to Tony White, chairman, president and CEO, Perkin-Elmer Corporation (Norwalk,
CT), "What does the future look like? No one really knows for sure,
but just as fans of Jules Verne got a fairly accurate look at submarines,
the fan of modern science has some idea of the ultimate analytical instrument:
it's a hand held device that gives you a complete molecular structure of
any object within seconds, just by pointing at the object." White predicts
the industry is almost certainly headed in that direction. "The collective
technology is taking us further outside the conventional laboratory and
more into practical commercial applications," he states, "and
it's taking us further inside the molecule for more precise and more valuable
information."
Rick Kniss, General Manager for Hewlett-Packard's
chemical analysis group (Palo Alto, CA), highlights the importance of customer
needs for integrated information management. "Imagine a lab environment
in which all the major pieces of equipment are networked with one simple
user interface," he proposes. "No more re-entering data. No more
struggling for compatibility between incompatible systems. Imagine that
this same lab is not only networked within itself, but linked to an enterprise
network connecting to numerous sites on the East Coast with facilities on
the West Coast."
With the top management at major LIMS vendors proposing this kind of future
based upon parallel technologies -- particularly when such vendors are closely
involved in driving those technologies as is Hewlett-Packard -- then such
visions and speculations are not going to be far from the eventual reality.
Indeed, if White and Kniss have any say in the matter, such products and
capabilities will soon be reality.