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Re: LIMS Selection
Judy Guy-Caffey wrote:
Our company is in the process of evaluating
LIMS vendors. I would greatly appreciate input from other members
who have been through this process. What LIMS systems did you evaluate?
How did you go about evaluating the various vendors? Which LIMS system
did you eventually select? Why did you select that particular system?
Why did you reject other LIMS systems? How did implementation of
the system you chose proceed (time frame, problems, etc.)?
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I am presently going through the same process.
It is... time-consuming.
Early in the process, my IT Department made
it clear that they strongly prefer a LIMS that does not require ANY additional
software be installed on users' computers. In other words, they want
a web-based system. That eliminated a couple of LIMS which used MS
Access as the front end and also a few that required Citrix-like emulation
software. StarLIMS has a white paper on their web site titled "Web-based
vs. Web-enabled LIMS: What is the Difference?" Your IT people
might find it interesting. www.starlims.com/news/TechnicalNotes.htm
I found listings of LIMS vendors at www.limsfinder.com
and limsource.com. There is a sidebar on limsfinder that says "Order
your Free LIMS Kit CD." Don't waste your time. I have
requested that CD multiple times and it has yet to appear in my mailbox.
How to choose a LIMS? Limsfinder has
a search engine that got me going in the right direction. Go to their web
site and click on the "Suppliers" link near the top left corner.
Most vendors support multiple database servers, and it's a good idea
to ask your IT people up front if they have a preference. Beyond that,
I've not found a way to systematically rank the vendors. Two suppliers
have so far done internet demos for us. The first one was well received
by the lab people, but rejected by IT due to the MS Access front end. The
second one, a web-base system, was well received by IT, but the lab people
hated it. The vendor with whom I am now starting to talk was selected
because the head of our R&D Department was impressed with a demo he
saw at the last PittCon. Bottom line: The shotgun method is not efficient.
The capabilities of the LIMS I have looked
at is staggering. All vendors anticipate being required to port data
from your existing electronic recordkeeping system, whatever it may be,
into their LIMS. Every vendor will broach the idea of interfacing
your analyzers directly to the LIMS, but this does not seem to be cost
effective unless that analyzer is heavily utilized. Most vendors
offer their version of "MyLIMS Boot camp," at either your site
or theirs. One of our driving forces is to have a system for generating
Certificates of Analyses for our product shipments.
- Harold
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