Connecting and Communicating Across Lab Operations

An alternative to a traditional Laboratory Information Management System (LIMS) is expected to allow for ease in food safety labs complying with the Food Safety Modernization Act. The NuGenesis Lab Management System, launched recently by Waters Corporation, can enable a food testing lab to quickly and productively keep more detailed records as the system captures files, reports, and data streams that can be required during an inspection.

Pharmaceutical companies use features of this system, enabling them to automate, archive, and retrieve machine-generated information. Food companies that use this system, especially those that use contract testing labs, can secure their lab testing records as well as locate and provide them rapidly for inspection.

Garrett Mullen, senior product marketing manager of laboratory informatics at Waters, says that this new system differs from LIMS designed strictly around databases with rigid data structures. “Our system has those as well, but by being built on top of the Scientific Data Management System and by being able to use file and print capture, along with the ability to extract and repurpose portions of any stored nonstructured document, NuGenesis provides the ability to annotate information in ways that a traditional LIMS does not.”

The NuGenesis system can be configured so that raw data files are automatically archived in near real time as they are generated on computers connected to instruments in the laboratory, and it can also be programmed to capture all printed reports when the system is set to batch mode print capture. This feature means that lab personnel will no longer have to manually organize and store that information, a process that has required consistent use of naming conventions and increased verification that data is captured correctly, Mullen explains.

“The value of being able to produce that information in a timely fashion for a Food and Drug Administration inspector is probably best measured by understanding the consequences of not producing that information in the required amount of time,” says Mullen.