In today’s fast-evolving laboratory landscape, no two labs are identical. Each has its unique goals, methods, data requirements, technologies, and outputs. How your lab operates plays a critical role in delivering accurate results, maintaining efficiency, and ensuring quality and compliance. This is where workflows and Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) integrated into a Laboratory Information Management System (LIMS) become essential tools for laboratory teams.
While some LIMS come with pre-configured workflows, these may not always align with your lab’s unique processes. Rigid systems can force teams to work around them, leading to inefficiencies and, in the worst scenario, a reversion to paper-based methods. A flexible LIMS with configurable workflows allows your lab to meet its bespoke requirements, without compromise.
The role of workflows in LIMS
Workflows in a LIMS play a pivotal role in ensuring laboratory processes are streamlined, repeatable, and compliant. They deliver this in a number of ways:
- Increased efficiency: Configurable workflows allow automation of repetitive tasks, reducing manual data entry and minimising errors. This boosts productivity by freeing up staff to focus on other, more important activities.
- User support: Workflows guide new team members through unfamiliar processes and help experienced staff navigate seldom-used procedures, ensuring consistency in execution.
- Improved data quality: Workflows enforce data capture at key points, ensuring critical information is not missed and enhancing the accuracy and reliability of your data.
- Consistency and quality: By standardising procedures, workflows help labs maintain high-quality outputs while building confidence in the results.
- Compliance and auditing: Configurable workflows offer built-in audit trails, which help demonstrate adherence to SOPs and regulatory requirements. These trails support future reviews, troubleshooting, and compliance checks.
Investing in a LIMS is a significant decision, and it is critical that the system evolves with your lab. As your lab progresses, workflows must adapt to new technologies, learning, equipment, and legislation. A LIMS with configurable workflows ensures your system remains relevant, whether you have an internal team managing changes or rely on a supplier for regular updates.
What to look for in a workflow tool
An effective workflow tool is the backbone of a robust LIMS, offering both adaptability and control. Whether managed in-house or via your supplier, here’s what you should look for:
- Low-code/no-code configuration: Tools that are user-friendly, allowing you to create or modify workflows without requiring extensive technical expertise.
- Step flexibility: Options to add, amend, or remove steps seamlessly, as well as prompt users during the process for data inputs.
- Logical visualisation: Visual tools to review and refine workflows, including branches for true/false logic and cancellation paths.
- Drag-and-drop functionality: Easily reposition steps, remove outdated ones, or insert new ones without disrupting the overall process.
- Auditing and compliance features: Tools to track process versions, roll back to previous workflows if needed, and retain full traceability for compliance audits.
- Drafting and testing capability: Ability to save workflows in draft mode for review and testing, ensuring they meet requirements before being implemented live.
Features of Achiever LIMS Laboratory Execution System (LES)
Achiever LIMS provides an intuitive Laboratory Execution System (LES) that enables labs to configure workflows tailored to their unique needs. Using low-code, no-code tools, labs can create sequential processes that improve data consistency and compliance while boosting efficiency. With Achiever LIMS, you can:
- Link tasks, automate data capture, and guide users through complex procedures.
- Create reusable procedure blocks for flexibility.
- Enable processes to pause, continue, or reassign tasks, making workflows more dynamic.
Additionally, Achiever LIMS supports compliance with GxP, ISO17025, MHRA, and HTA regulations, providing confidence that your lab is audit-ready.
By choosing a LIMS with configurable workflows, labs can ensure their processes evolve alongside their goals, technology, and regulatory landscape. Don’t let a rigid system hold your lab back—invest in a LIMS that works and evolves with you.
This white paper details how to get the best from standardising workflows in a LIMS whilst avoiding common, and sometimes costly, procedural mistakes.
