How to maintain a profitable market share with existing testing contracts

During the past 20 years competition between individual testing laboratories has increased partially due to pressure from large clients seeking greater value ­ more quality testing for less money. Clients, writes Karl G Ekstrom, look for laboratories that are able to offer high quality on a large number of tests, creating aapproved vendor' lists in order to maintain a smaller, highly qualified supplier base.

For a testing laboratory to be successful it must supply fast, high quality service at the lowest possible price to the customer. It must also have a demonstrable process improvement plan in place.

Applying ahigh production' concepts from manufacturing to the laboratory product (final report or certificate of analysis), we must deliver a lower cost product in larger volumes, in order to remain profitable.

To achieve this objective, the product and processes must be controlled and streamlined. Redundant operations and repetitious steps must be eliminated. A laboratory information management system (LIMS) is an essential tool in this plan.

Towards azero defects'

Today the ultimate goal for any process is to produce azero defects'. In the laboratory this means information that can be trusted to be on time and accurate.

In order to achieve this goal, management of the information must be controlled on a high level.

Human beings are inherently prone to making mistakes especially when they must make decisions. Therefore, if a LIMS can be used to reduce the number of choices and decisions that laboratory staff must make while processing a sample, the risk of making errors is reduced.

A laboratory information management system helps control the information generated during routine laboratory processes and allows qualified individuals to produce more consistently accurate reports, on time.

Testing laboratories must execute a large variety of tests and make decisions in an aggressive, fast-paced environment. Older LIMS are static and do not lend themselves to fast and easy modification to accommodate the ever changing customer needs in a busy, successful contract testing laboratory.

Configuration tools

The very powerful configuration tools that are part of Matrix Plus are designed to handle such demands. They allow us to take advantage of the unbiased nature of a computer while giving us a powerful, user-configurable interface that is simple to use but flexible.

The system stores repetitious choices that must be made based upon tested and validated methods and information.

When we register a sample using Matrix Plus, we need only enter a submitter code. Each submitter is linked to a package or panel of tests for each substance or sample type that they submit for testing.

Transfer technology

Our sample registration screen (Fig. 1) has a large number of fields that are populated from data drawn from static database tables, based upon a single screen entry, using screen transfer technology.

We use a combination of screen filters and SQL statements to select the substance based upon the submitter code and part number. Hence Matrix Plus eliminates several of the choices and decisions that would otherwise be required at sample registration.

We gain additional productivity by having Matrix Plus pick the correct label formats and process routers.

This allows custom printed output to be generated, including final certificate reports using the Crystal Report writer, based solely upon the substance code entered at registration.

Fig. 2 is such a report that includes a acontrol chart' showing real time sampling of the process being measured and compared to the present upper and lower control values.

Pass or fail

Additional formatting statements compare sample test limits to individual sample results and indicate a disposition of pass or fail.

Colour backgrounds and text or both are used to identify which attribute(s) cause the failure.

Electronic signatures are used based upon the user code of the person who approved the sample results. This saves time by eliminating the requirement to sign each report by hand, yet still maintains the integrity of the audit trail.

Conclusion

The planning, configuration and validation time that has and is being spent to implement our Matrix Plus LIMS is well worth the effort. The system is improving our efficiency and reducing our costs.

As Matrix Plus is user configurable, it is the ideal choice for a laboratory such as ours that must retain its ability to quickly and easily adapt to change.

Karl G Ekstrom is with Modern Industries In, Pennsylvannia, USA. Tel: +1 814 455 8061.

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