By comparison, the option of a purpose-built LIMS, with the option to embed ELN, LES, and other modules, provides a streamlined and efficient customization process. For all industries, the best-established workflows and operating procedures determine their functionality, and as a result the platform is built for your needs ahead of time. The advantages of such an accelerated start are varied and significant.
1. Save Time
Compared to a typical LIMS system, a pre-configured LIMS can deploy up to 75% faster. The purposeful functionality of a pre-configured LIMS strengthens a consistent, industry-standard workflow, in order to help all labs achieve greater productivity and efficiency.
2. Save Money
Improved functional efficiencies and faster deployment result in enormous cost savings. Turning to pre-packaged, fully embedded modular capabilities instead of stand-alone ELN and LES products will help you maximize your return over time.
3. Reduce Risk
A purpose-built LIMS reflects not only the latest regulatory and compliance developments within your industry, but industry best practices. As a result, it removes the need for custom code and thereby lessens the overall configuration effort, thereby lowering the innate risk with other LIMS projects.
4. Stay Focused
In purpose-built LIMS, lab managers can conceal or disable non-essential functionality. This results in a user experience that’s responsive to the specific needs and use cases of your front-line staff, not just to your industry, which results in reduced training time, improved productivity, and greater quality overall.
5. Future-Proof Your Business
Much like industry regulations and conditions, your lab will change over time. For instance, you may make additions of new service areas, new tests, or new users as your lab grows. A purpose-built, modular LIMS with industry-standard web technology will expand with your company, ranging from start-up labs through global operations, all without the problems associated with specialized coding such as the prohibitive time, cost, and compliance issues.
Built Better for the Oil and Gas Industry
Petrochemical refineries need a purpose-built solution in order to run efficiently and manufacture products with the highest possible quality. From crude oil to finalized product, managers and analysts in oil and gas labs need a comprehensive overview of every material throughout its lifecycle. The data needs to tell them what tests were done, how frequently, and at what stage of the refining process.
In response users need to be able to merge, segregate, and visualize that data to compare and contrast how one processing plant is performing compared to another, or to study temperature, pressure, and other environmental factors in order to detect and correct aberrations therein.
They also need to ensure compliance with ever-more rigorous regulations, such as the transmuting standards regarding the control of smog-producing chemicals like sulfur. And all this needs to be done efficiently, with no shutdowns, and avoiding the expense of repeating costly tests.
LabVantage Oil and Gas is built with these labs in mind. LabVantage Oil and Gas is pre-configured to work in much the same way petrochemical refineries operate, without the non-essential functionality standard LIMS deployments include. It is cost-effective, fast to implement, and designed by longstanding oil and gas experts.
The resulting pre-configured product helps refineries to:
Optimize Efficiency by Closely Tracking Samples from Start to Finish
LabVantage Oil and Gas possesses end-to-end sample collection and management tools, including the following:
- Statistical Process Control (SPC) centered upon Westgard rules, which offers a proactive analysis of trending data to help predict and prevent errors at every sample collection point.
- Sample monitoring containing hot-spot visualizations, hierarchical definitions of collection sites, as well as automated test scheduling throughout locations and business units.
- Reports and dashboards which have been designed to integrate or segregate data as required, as well as the choice to interface with data historians such as OSI PI.
- A centralized web-based deployment with permission controls for hundreds of simultaneous users, offering a single source of truth for inquiries and insights.
Accelerate Production with Built-In, Ready-to-Use Petrochemical Testing Methods
LabVantage Oil and Gas is pre-populated with the most common ASTM test approaches. This helps to expedite the LIMS implementation process, is time- and cost- efficient, and provides faster support access for chemists, analysts, and other users to create an efficient, quality-driven workflow. Several of its built-in methods include:
- Multi-element Analysis of Crude Oils Using Inductively Coupled Plasma Atomic Emission Spectrometry (ASTM D7691 – 16)
- Determination of Sulfur Compounds in Natural Gas and Gaseous Fuels by Gas Chromatography and Chemiluminescence (ASTM D5504 – 12)
- Determination of Benzene and Toluene in Finished Motor and Aviation Gasoline by Gas Chromatography (ASTM D3606 – 10)
- +13 other commonly required ASTM methods for petrochemical operations
The system tracks both instrumentation and users to ensure that the above methods are applied correctly and that they yield valid test results, permitting only users with proper credentials and/or qualifications to continue.
Maximize Commercial Value by Customer Specifications to Fuel Grade
The purpose-built LIMS records a library of customer-specific requirements, which permits manufacturers to rotate a product from one intended customer to another with the appropriate CoAs. For example, Customer A’s requirements, such as a particular grade of aviation fuel, may also happen to meet the specifications defined by Customer B, for example. The system seeks the best possible market for a finished product, by working alongside business operators, and thus prevent the risk of issuing a product to the wrong customer.
Avoid Regulatory Penalties with Compliant-Ready Software
The system has been established for compliance with ISO 17025, 21 CFR 11, Annex 11, and GxP, as well as EPA protocols. Regulations which are state-specific are additionally included, like California’s own standards for air quality control, in addition to specifications for seasonal blends.
Safely Track, Store, and Label Hazardous Material
The system includes modules configured to create Safety Data Sheets (SDS). These Safety Data Sheets permit users to rapidly identify explosive, flammable, or otherwise hazardous materials. Also available within the system are internationally recognized pictograms for hazardous materials, which are ready to print and to apply to product labels.
The Accelerated Implementation Experience
Selecting a purpose-built LIMS accelerates the implantation process at an unprecedented rate. By ensuring much of the background work is already finished before you even begin, the purpose-built LIMS offers you a head start whilst maintaining your consistency, compliance, or performance.
This is the comparison between LabVantage implementation process and a typical implementation experience.
| A Typical LIMS Implementation |
LabVantage LIMS Implementation |
| At least 12 months to deploy |
Deploys in as little as three months |
This deployment process requires an enormous and up-front investment. Beginning with a detailed discovery and documentation of user needs, the work continues through multiple design iterations and testing phases. To heavily customize and configure increases the degree of risk regarding compliance requirements, which demands a significant investment in validation and test planning.
The system is ready to use once fully customized and compliant to needs, but only after a significant training investment on the part of all users and administrators. The complexity of customization determines training timelines – often a significant factor in the expenses of conventional deployment. The vendor must be involved for customization and installation where updates are required after deployment: creating further costs and time required to maintain performance. |
The implantation process offered by LabVantage LIMS Implementation is vastly more efficient, as this system already uses established industry best practices to be configured for your industry. Data templates are already integrated, and the most commonly-used products and functions are engaged and ready. If further configuration is required, the system’s modular design can easily be adapted without code; whilst ongoing updates and enhancements do not require specialized skill or outside management. |
Run Your Digital Enterprise with LabVantage
Every successful laboratory, no matter the industry, functions at the intersection between talent and technology: the best and most efficient tools used by the right people. LabVantage, the market leader in efficient and modern LIMS solutions, is a vital component of that winning formula. Here’s why.
The Best and Most Secure Technology in the Industry
Completely web-hosted, the feature-rich LIMS gives networked users access to the same information, and all from the same secure and intuitive system – whether they are across the globe or in the same lab. The system, hosted either in the cloud or onsite, also links labs with third-party contributors outside of their firewall. These might include research organizations or manufacturing partners, which allows for single-platform harmonized data input.
A System That Adapts to Your Needs – Without Code
The modular design of the purpose-built LIMS offers further configuration and adaptation without the need for specialized coding skills. Users can either use the professional global services offered by LabVantage to configure their platform or do it themselves: either scenario reduces the cost, effort, and complexity of additional testing and compliance.
A Fully Interoperable Experience from Start to Finish
There will be no more siloed informatics systems for individual use cases within a product life cycle. The system connects your processes in a single, central hub, meaning that the documentation created through early R&D explorations is reliable and consistent throughout manufacturing and final quality assurance testing. This results in a much more efficient lab with a lessened degree of risk, creating a stronger overall business performance.
A Professional Support Team in Lockstep with Your Needs
LabVantage’s global professional services range from solution engineers, business analysts, and project managers, who offer consistent and stellar support from deployment through validation and ongoing monitoring. More partner than vendor, through their managed services offering, the team frequently monitor, maximize, optimize and enhance your system, to provide you with greater confidence and increased control of your IT and work costs.
Conclusion
Petrochemical refineries are helped to the maximum possible efficiency by LabVantage Oil and Gas. Your oil and gas refinery is bound for success, with the full-featured, entirely web-based informatics platform of LabVantage, which has been designed specifically for success in your industry.
This information has been sourced, reviewed and adapted from materials provided by LabVantage Solutions, Inc.
For more information on this source, please visit LabVantage Solutions, Inc.