Expanding Your Lab? Your LIMS Makes a Difference

Set-it-and-forget-it is a poor strategy. Everything changes. Whether you run an internal department or an independent business, your lab must adapt to those changes. How well you adapt depends on the agility of your lab’s systems.

We published the article LIMS Optimization: Aligning a LIMS to the Way Your Lab Works to describe the configurability and customizability of the LabLynx laboratory information management system (LIMS) platform. By giving you control over the LIMS experience, we empower your lab’s responsiveness to changing business conditions.

This post will explain how LIMS configurability supports laboratory growth strategies through acquisition, geographic expansion, and services diversification.

Acquiring new business

Laboratory mergers and acquisitions can boost business by bringing in established talent, infrastructure, and customers. Of course, those benefits must outweigh the time and expense of bringing the acquired lab into your existing business.

An easily-configurable LIMS simplifies integration projects.

Integration is more straightforward when your LIMS administrators control the user experience. They can create workflows to support any new capabilities the acquired lab brings to your organization. Admins can also unify supplier and customer databases to centralize operations within your LabLynx ELab LIMS.

Bringing new employees into your systems goes more smoothly when you can apply user profiles based on roles and locations. Upon login, they get instant access to laboratory workflows, scheduling tools, and other features needed to do their jobs. You will already have LabLynx-developed training materials specific to your LIMS. As your new team members get up-to-speed, they can get answers to their questions from the 24×7 LabLynx help desk.

LabLynx engineers are also ready to help. All LabLynx clients request customizations to optimize their ELab LIMS solution. You can call on us for integrations, application extensions, and code modifications to optimize your acquisitions.

Geographic expansion

Extending your lab’s geographic reach will bring new customers to your existing testing services, which in turn will effectively introduce new processes that your lab’s LIMS must be ready to handle.

An agriculture laboratory, for example, would need new sample collection processes to support farms in other regions of the state. Picking up samples from local farms is simple enough. Supporting more distant customers is another thing altogether.

The LabLynx ELab LIMS is ready to handle changing collection practices. Admins use configurable sample collection management modules to create routes, locations, collection points, and collection schedules.

Web portals support do-it-yourself options. Farm customers can access the lab’s portal on their own schedules to place orders, download barcoded sample labels, and generate shipping labels.

Reaching new territories may require a physical expansion. An environmental laboratory, for example, might adopt a core-and-satellite structure to support a bigger geography. The lab’s satellite locations would handle common air and water quality tests to offer higher throughput and reduced turnaround times. The central laboratory, on the other hand, more efficiently performs complex tests that require specialized equipment and expertise.

In this case, the lab’s LIMS admins can configure the workflows specific to the satellite locations. User profiles limit employee access to the instruments and workflows available at these sites. Each satellite lab’s manager would see the screens and reports they need to oversee their location’s performance. Simultaneously, data from each lab rolls up into reports for managing the laboratory overall.

Entering a region with different standards and regulations makes compliance more complex. That complexity, however, should not turn state or international borders into barriers to your lab’s growth.

We configure the initial deployment of your LabLynx ELab LIMS to support your lab’s compliance efforts. When you expand into other regions, your admins can configure workflows, reporting, and other features to comply with new regulatory requirements.

Adding new testing services

Your lab’s testing services must adapt to changing technologies and customer expectations. An inflexible LIMS can’t hold you back. LabLynx gives your administrators access to the capabilities of our ELab LIMS platform, making your lab more responsive to changing business conditions.

For example, many clinical diagnostic laboratories bought equipment to support COVID-19 testing efforts. As testing demand fell, they repurposed these systems to offer a range of molecular diagnostic services.

The LabLynx LIMS made adding these services simple. Even though initially configured for clinical diagnostics, the LIMS merely hid its molecular diagnostics capabilities and features. A lab’s LIMS administrators could activate those features and adapt workflows to bring the new service online.

Other labs grow by expanding testing services to support new industries. They can leverage their expertise, infrastructure, and reputation to drive growth. New industries, however, bring new standards and new regulations. Here again, the capabilities of the LabLynx LIMS platform simplify service expansion.

A case in point is how established labs have responded to state-by-state cannabis decriminalization. Food testing labs already work within state and federal food safety regulations. Adding test services for edible cannabis products is a logical business decision. However, decriminalization does not mean deregulation. States specify testing and reporting requirements. They also require sample traceability.

Food testing labs can enter this new industry without replacing their LabLynx LIMS software. They often already use chain-of-custody features in the sample management modules. LabLynx engineers can help integrate the lab’s LIMS with their state’s track-and-trace reporting system. LIMS administrators can configure common cannabis testing standards and workflows based on their lab’s capabilities and local regulations.

Choose a LIMS that makes your lab more responsive to change

Selecting a LIMS should not preserve your lab in amber. Your customer’s expectations will change, testing standards will evolve, and growth opportunities will appear, but your lab must be ready to seize them. Your LIMS can’t hold you back.

Deep configurability and customization options make the LabLynx ELab LIMS software a powerful engine for growth. Your LIMS administrator’s control over your LIMS lets them support new growth opportunities. Customization options allow you to make the most of your lab’s growth.

Learn more about our LIMS platform’s flexibility by downloading LIMS Optimization: Aligning a LIMS to the Way Your Lab Works. Or schedule a demo to see how the LabLynx ELab LIMS can support your lab’s growth.