Template:LIMS Buyer’s Guide for Cannabis Testing Laboratories/LIMS acquisition, implementation, and support/LIMS solutions for cannabis testing labs

4.4 LIMS solutions for cannabis testing labs

The previous chapter examined informatics in the cannabis lab, as well as specific functionality considerations of a cannabis testing LIMS. And in this chapter we've looked at the acquisition and implementation process itself. At this point, you may be asking what LIMS options are actually out there. After all, there are hundreds of vendors out there vying for your dollars. But how many of them explicitly describe how their LIMS meets the needs of the cannabis testing industry?

Table 1 lists 19 solutions that have been found to be publicly marketed—via a vendor website—as specifically offering features that support the cannabis testing laboratory. This means the vendor isn't simply saying their solution serves the cannabis testing industry and leaving it at that. Their websites have been found to explain in more detail how their solution meets those industry needs.

Table 1. Known LIMS solutions publically marketed as addressing the needs of cannabis testing labs LIMS solution Developer ApolloLIMS Common Cents Systems, Inc. Bika LIMS Bika Lab Systems (Pty) Ltd. and the SENAITE Foundation CannabLIS Cannabliss New England, LLC CannaLIS Specialty Testing Solutions Ca, LLC CannaQA LIMS LabLynx, Inc. CGM LABDAQ CompuGroup Medical AG Clin1 Cannabis LIS Clin1, LLC CloudLIMS|CloudLIMS and FreeLIMS CloudLIMS.com, LLC Confident Cannabis LIMS CC Software, LLC Element LIMS Promium, LLC HORIZON LIMS HORIZON Lab Systems, LLC LabWare GROW LabWare, Inc. LabFlow AINZ Corp. LabLite SQL LIMS LabLite, LLC LIMS ABC BGASoft, Inc. Lockbox LIMS Third Wave Analytics, Inc. Matrix Gemini Autoscribe Informatics, Inc. Omega LIMS Khemia Software, Inc. QBench Junction Concepts, Inc. QLIMS OnQ Software Pty. Ltd. reLIMS Carobar Business Solutions, LLC

There may in fact be other vendors out there whose solution meets the needs of a cannabis testing laboratory, but it will ultimately be up to you to either discover them or draw such vendors in to explain how their solution meets your needs. This is where the value of the previously mentioned RFI comes in. Several approaches can be taken with an RFI, by publishing it in strategic locations on the internet to be found by vendors, or even sending it directly to vendors you've scouted ahead of time. In the end, the RFI isn't meant to be a means of grabbing every single detail about a vendor's cannabis testing LIMS but rather a means to further filter your vendor options down to a handful of companies who may be able to meet your lab's specific needs.

The next chapter discusses the value of the RFI and lists a wide variety of possible questions you may want to pose in your RFI, with many of those questions being based off the LIMSpec for Cannabis Testing.