Laboratory Information Management Systems have become the mainstay of modern laboratories because they automate laboratory activities, ensure data integrity, and upgrade the efficiency of laboratory operations.
However, on occasion, the search for a LIMS to suit each laboratory's particular needs can be very time-consuming and diligent. Every lab has its workflows, data requirements, and operational challenges. For such diverse needs, no one-size-fits-all solution could ever be designed.
In today's article, we are going to discuss the challenge increased manifold by the huge available array of LIMS options within the market and how one can choose the perfectly fitting LIMS for a lab.
Understanding LIMS
A Laboratory Information Management System (LIMS) is a software solution designed to manage and streamline laboratory operations, ensuring efficient data collection, organization, and accessibility. Its core functions include:
- Integration Capabilities: Connecting with laboratory instruments and other systems for seamless data exchange.
- Regulatory Compliance: Ensuring adherence to industry standards and regulations, such as GLP or ISO 17025.
- Workflow Automation: Streamlining routine tasks such as reporting, inventory management, and scheduling.
- Data Management: Centralizing data to improve accuracy, consistency, and accessibility.
- Sample Tracking: Monitoring the entire lifecycle of a sample, from collection to storage and analysis.
Benefits of Implementing a LIMS:
- Scalability: Modern LIMS solutions can grow with your lab, accommodating increased workloads and new functionalities.
- Increased Efficiency: Automating workflows and data processing saves time, reduces manual effort, and minimizes the risk of human error.
- Enhanced Compliance: By maintaining detailed records and automating compliance processes, a LIMS ensures adherence to regulatory requirements.
- Improved Data Management: A LIMS centralizes data storage, making it easier to retrieve, share, and analyze information while reducing errors.
How to Choose the Perfectly Fitting LIMS for Your Lab
Option 1: Settling for a Semi-Fitting Solution
When the search for a perfect LIMS proves elusive, many laboratories opt for a semi-fitting solution. These off-the-shelf systems offer a core set of functionalities that can be adapted to meet a significant portion of a lab's requirements. While they may not tick every box on the wishlist, they promise immediate availability and often come with a lower price tag.
Pros of a Semi-Fitting Solution
- Quick Implementation: Semi-fitting LIMS solutions are readily available, allowing for faster deployment compared to custom-built systems or extensive customizations.
- Lower Costs: These solutions generally have a lower upfront investment and ongoing maintenance costs compared to developing a new system from scratch.
Cons of a Semi-Fitting Solution
- Inefficiencies: Gaps between the LIMS' capabilities and the lab's specific needs can lead to inefficiencies and workarounds.
- Error Potential: Manual data entry or transferring data between systems to compensate for the LIMS' shortcomings increases the risk of errors.
- Constant Adaptation: Laboratories using semi-fitting solutions often find themselves in a perpetual state of seeking improvements, customizations, or additional software to bridge the functionality gap.
Option 2: Develop a Totally New Solution from Scratch
For laboratories with highly specialized workflows or stringent data management requirements, developing a custom LIMS from the ground up might seem like the ultimate solution. This approach offers the potential to create a system that perfectly mirrors the lab's operations, maximizing efficiency and data integrity.
Pros of Developing a Custom LIMS
- Complete Customization: A custom LIMS can be tailored to every intricate detail of the lab's processes, ensuring optimal fit and functionality.
- Ownership and Control: A custom LIMS gives labs full ownership over their system, eliminating reliance on third-party vendors for updates or modifications. Proprietary data security measures can be implemented, offering greater control over sensitive information.
- Competitive Edge: By creating a unique solution, labs can gain an operational advantage, leveraging the LIMS to enhance productivity and differentiate their services in the industry.
Cons of Developing a Custom LIMS
- High Development Costs: Building a LIMS from scratch is a significant investment, requiring substantial financial resources and skilled IT personnel, not only during the development phase but on the long run.
- Time-Consuming: The development process can be lengthy, delaying the realization of benefits and potentially disrupting lab operations.
- Maintenance Challenges: Ongoing maintenance, updates, and troubleshooting require dedicated IT resources and expertise.
Option 3: Acquire a Flexible and Scalable LIMS (e.g., Di-LIMS)
When the shortcomings of off-the-shelf solutions become apparent, and building a LIMS from scratch feels daunting, there’s a better alternative:Partner with a LIMS provider offering advanced plugin development capabilities.
At DiData, we provide a robust and scalable LIMS platform—Di-LIMS—that serves as a reliable foundation for laboratory operations. It offers essential features like sample management, inventory control, instrument integration, and data analysis. But what truly sets Di-LIMS apart is its flexibility to adapt to your lab's unique needs through customizable plugins.
By collaborating with DiData’s development team, labs can create or co-develop plugins tailored to their specific requirements. From integrating specialized instruments to automating complex workflows or implementing advanced data analysis tools, plugins provide a focused and efficient way to expand the capabilities of Di-LIMS.
A Case Study: The Swiss Biobanking Platform Partnership
Swiss Biobanking Platform (SBP), the premier national research infrastructure in Switzerland for biobanking activities, partnered with DiData to create a cutting-edge Biobanking Information Management Solution (BIMS).
SBP, with over 93 biobanks in its network, is dedicated to guiding biobanks in adopting best practices and supporting researchers with seamless access to samples and data. By combining DiData’s expertise in LIMS development with SBP’s field-specific insights, the partnership not only improved Di-LIMS but also led to the creation of an innovative biobank-focused module.
Essential Biobank Modules in Di-LIMS
Here are highlights of key modules tailored to biobanking workflows:
1. SMPL Module: Biobank Workflow Management
Developed in collaboration with SBP, the SMPL Module addresses common gaps in biobanking systems. Key features include:
- Dynamic Study Design Tool: Precisely model any study protocol in the BIMS data flow.
- Customizable Workflows: Create accurate representations of real lab processes like aliquoting or centrifugation with just a few clicks.
- Workflow Visibility: Easily view and track samples at various workflow stages.
- Standardization and Harmonization: Share and harmonize biobank information across institutions, regardless of size, funding, or affiliation.
2. Storage Module
Efficiently manage and replicate your storage locations with the Storage Module. Whether you prefer to customize your own storage types or use our predefined options—such as Freezers, Drawers, Shelves, and Boxes—this module offers a flexible and user-friendly solution for organizing and locating any type of record, including Samples and Reagents.
Key Features:
- Custom or Default Storage Types: Tailor storage to fit your lab's unique needs or use ready-made templates for quick setup.
- Interactive 2D Representation: Visualize your storage system with intuitive graphics for effortless navigation.
- Tree-View Navigation: Quickly locate items with a hierarchical view of all storage compartments.
- One-Click Setup: Create a new freezer and its compartments—shelves, racks, and boxes—with a single click, streamlining the setup process.
The Storage Module simplifies organization while saving valuable time, ensuring your lab’s inventory is always accessible and easy to manage.
3. Data-View Module
The Data-View Module serves as the central hub for managing all biobank data, including Patients, Samples, and Storages. Its intuitive interface and powerful features make it an essential component of Di-LIMS, streamlining data management for biobanks of all sizes.
Key Features:
- Flexible Data Management: Create new data types with ease and define custom columns tailored to your lab's specific needs.
- Advanced Search and Sorting: Quickly find and organize data using robust search and filtering options.
- Custom Highlights: Automatically highlight key information to improve visibility and navigation within large datasets.
- Seamless Integration: View and manage all relevant biobank data in a unified, user-friendly interface.
By combining flexibility with advanced data navigation tools, the Data-View Module empowers users to efficiently handle extensive datasets, ensuring accurate and streamlined operations across biobank workflows.
The Data-View module is automatically synchronized with the other modules, such as SMPL or Storages, to provide up to date information. Additionally, an integration with advanced options for Excel data import/export is supported.
4. Forms Builder
Say goodbye to the need for IT expertise when creating and customizing forms. With the Forms Builder Module, designing modern electronic forms becomes simple and accessible for all users, empowering labs to streamline data collection processes with ease.
Key Features:
- User-Friendly Interface: Create and customize forms without requiring any technical background.
- Advanced Validation Rules: Add validation rules to ensure accurate data entry, such as enforcing specific formats or ranges.
- Conditional Logic: Dynamically display or hide fields based on predefined conditions, creating adaptive and responsive forms.
- Support for Diverse Field Types: Choose from a wide array of field options, including:
- Text fields
- Date selectors
- Numeric inputs
- Drop-down menus
Purpose and Flexibility:
The Forms Builder Module is integral to Di-LIMS, enabling users to design and configure forms for collecting data at every step of the sample lifecycle. Its flexibility ensures that all types of data—no matter how unique—can be accurately captured and managed.
This module makes it easy to adapt data collection processes to meet your lab's evolving needs, ensuring both precision and efficiency.
5. Label Printing and Barcodes
Di-LIMS integrates with label printers to generate barcode labels for samples and containers, which is crucial for maintaining traceability in biobanks. The Printer module is flexible and supports various label formats.
Barcodes are automatically generated for each record in Di-LIMS; the format can be configured to integrate any field values as the Sample type, Tube type or Study.
6. Access Rights
Fully control the access rights with multiple roles and permissions over each project. Maintain confidential data highly secure and only accessible with special permissions thanks to the tag “sensitive data” that can be assigned to dedicated Fields, as “Name” or “Phone number”. Additionally, the User module allows to assign roles for each project that the user has access to. Admins can create new roles and manage their associated permissions using the Roles module.
On top of Roles and access rights, Di-LIMS maintains an automatic audit trail that records all user actions, including data access and modifications. Such audits are always active and can not be altered or deleted even by system admins.
Providing such a level of security, permission levels and audit trails; Di-LIMS ensures compliance with all existing Biobank certifications and regulatory requirements.
7. Advanced customization - Plugins
When the default Di-LIMS features can not meet very specific needs; DiData empowers admin users with the highest level of flexibility for creating custom screens within the application without altering the core of DiData.
DiData engineers or admins can create dedicated interfaces or custom integrations using HTML, JavaScript, or Vue.js including Di-LIMS reusable components. Additionally, they can interact with any provided backend end-point/routes or create their custom routes using PHP programming language.
This solution offers the highest level of flexibility while maintaining all security layers, authentication, audits and permissions. Additionally, these changes are stored as configuration and not Di-LIMS core; therefore, plugins don’t compromise the system stability or upgrade paths.
Di-LIMS Architecture
Di-LIMS is a client-server based system; the principle behind the client-server constraints is the separation of concerns. Separating the user interface concerns from the data storage and the REST-API improves the portability of the user interfaces across multiple platforms (Front-end application, Python API...). It also improves scalability by simplifying the server components.
Our REST API is based on PHP, which can be deployed with any web server such as Apache, Nginx, IIS, or any HTTP server. DiData is connected to a database that supports Mysql or SQL Server. A powerful filesystem abstraction is provided; its integration provides simple drivers for working with local file systems such as SFTP and Amazon S3.
The DiData Front-end client is a web application, a Single Page Application (SPA) developed using the VueJs framework; this latter is very optimized in the production environment and can be used with any modern browser. We also use a set of strategies (lazy loading resources, dynamic import, files compression. etc.) to interact as fast as possible with the system.
