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[[File:|right|350px]] Title: What are the most important features of a laboratory information management system (LIMS)?

Author for citation: Shawn E. Douglas

License for content: Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International

Publication date: March 2024

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A laboratory information management system (LIMS) can be purpose-built to a specific industry or designed to broadly meet the base needs of most any lab. As such, given different vendor approaches and different industry needs, functionality may vary among LIMS, sometimes significantly. But what are the most important features of these systems?

To be fair, asking a question about "most important features" makes it tough to come up with something other than a subjective answer. On one hand, important to who? The laboratory seeking a LIMS is of course going to have its own workflows and other unique requirements, and that lab will want a LIMS that can address those needs and requirements. On the other, some iteration of the LIMS has been around for decades, and while the way laboratory work has been conducted has changed over time, some LIMS requirements have remained the same. Dating back to the 1970s, LIMS has had the automation of laboratory workflows, reporting, and data management at its core, and that is no different today. The birth of LIMS in the 1970s into the early 1980s saw focus placed upon needs such as:

• data processing and management,
• sample management,
• inventory management,
• document management,
• quality control,
• reporting, and
• interfacing and networking.

If one looks carefully at that list, they will notice that those needs essentially follow the sample's path throughout the lab, from acquisition to results reporting and disposal.