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Laboratory software increases efficiency for water suppliers: PerkinElmer LAS, Inc.'s advanced Laboratory Information Management system (LIMS) automates previously manual tasks to allow lab workers to focus more attention on water supply safety.

Article Excerpt
American Water Works and Montgomery Water Works and Sanitary Sewer Board (MWWSSB), two US water supply companies, increased the efficiency of their laboratories and enhanced productivity by using advanced laboratory information management systems (LIMS) to automate previously manual tasks. American Water Works configured their LIMS to automatically create work orders and print labels and chain of custody documents for the many samples that laboratory analyzes regularly.

The MWWSSB has unique, streamlined applications for automatic transfer of data from instruments to the LIMS. For example, data from gravimetric measurements is transferred to a spreadsheet, then checked and moved directly to the LIMS with a push of a button. The MWWSSB has saved additional time by creating custom reports that provide information that had previously been manually collected and formatted. "Automating jobs that had to be done manually in the past allows our lab to focus more time and attention on our primary task, ensuring the safety of our customers' water supply," said Steve Rodopoulos, Laboratory Manager for the MWWSSB.

Consolidating schedules from 300 districts

American Water, a part of RWE Thames Water, provides high quality water, wastewater, and other related services to 20 million customers in 28 states, four Canadian provinces, Puerto Rico, and Chile. The company has more than 8,000 employees. Originally, American Water used a homegrown database to store laboratory samples. The system did not offer any significant process automation capabilities, so there were only...