Experience and prospects of using the laboratory information system in testing laboratories of municipal water utilities

Summary

The task of confirming the high level of quality of the conducted research places analytical laboratories of water utilities before the need of being certified for compliance with the requirements of the state and international standards (updated GOST ISO/IEC 17025-2019, etc.), involving the introduction of an intralaboratory control (IC), a quality management system (QMS), passing the procedures of interlaboratory comparative tests (ICT). As a result, the workload on the laboratory personnel significantly increases, the efficiency of the work of engineers and laboratory assistants declines, the costs of the laboratory activities increase. The use of laboratory information systems (LIS, LIMS), i. e. software tools for the automation of business processes that provide for the comprehensive solution of the tasks of accredited laboratories is considered as a way to optimize the laboratory’s activities; and it is simple and transparent to increase the efficiency of their activities. An example of such information systems is LIS «Khimik-Analitik» that has been successfully cooperating with the laboratories of water utilities throughout Russia for more than 20 years. Today, LIS meets almost all the requirements to the accredited laboratories, i. e. entering the results of analysis (including directly from the equipment) and their metrological processing in accordance with the requirements of the regulatory documents, compiling report documents, accounting of inventory items with possible integration with accounting systems, maintaining QMS journals, drawing up route plans and job setup. The access to LIS documents and development of calibration characteristics is possible through web services. LIS is available in various configuration options, the minimum of which is LIS for IC software product.

Key words

control of water quality , automation means , vodokanal , intralaboratory control , laboratory information system