Every LIMS vendor on your shortlist promises the same thing:
From chaos to order.
Turning disarray into data control.
Clarity over chaos.
But here's what none of those pages mention: a LIMS doesn’t change your process. It only inherits it to then run it faster.
Configuration finishes, everyone gets a login, and by week three the lab is doing exactly what it did before. Only with better fonts.
The truth is, workarounds move in with the team if they weren’t solved before digitalization.
There's a quote, usually credited to Bill Gates: "Automation applied to an inefficient operation will magnify the inefficiency."
A good process plus a LIMS compound, but a broken process will result in the same failure.
So how do you tell whether your lab is ready for digitalization? Check these 3 points.
Before Frifag Märwil AG decided to go digital, we ran a LabCheck to see how their quality data was managed. It went paper, then Excel, then email, and every handoff added a manual step.
→ For every point where data changes hands, name the person accountable. Two names or no names means that handoff will break in the LIMS too.
54% of labs still work in it daily. Among labs that already run a LIMS, a third still use Excel every day.
→ Ask yourself: if Excel vanished tonight, would the process still work?
Only 1 lab in 10 has instruments and software fully connected, which is why most projects discover their architecture after go-live.
→ For every value crossing system, decide which system is master and which holds a copy. Then ask a vendor whether they support open standards like SiLA and AnIML or only their own connectors.
LabCheck by the 1LIMS team takes a day and can be done on-site or remotely: we walk the floor, map sample-to-report, measure hours spent, and tell you what digitalization would deliver in your lab.
At Frifag, we discovered that one QA employee spent 32% of their working time on quality data management, amounting to CHF 22,400 per year, and lab staff overall spent 55% of their time managing data.
We measured that with 1LIMS, Frifag could save CHF 15,400 a year, 71% ROI.
If you are curious what results digitalization could bring you, start with LabCheck..
Or reply to this email, and we'll tell you where we'd look first.
Check these out if you want to go deeper:
👉 What LIMS deployment costs, and what to do before, during, and after go-live
👉1LIMS report on how labs are adopting digitalization
Happy & safe lab work!
❤️ Greetings,
1LIMS Team
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