QBench Case Study: Better Than Seven Other LIMS

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Background

EO Science Lab is the purity testing and R&D laboratory for an essential oils business. The business provides the purest, highest quality essential oils and products, including nutritional supplements and personal care products.

Prior Experience With Seven LIMS

The EO Lab Supervisor had used 7 different LIMS systems, including:

1. LabWare
2. LabVantage
3. Water’s NuGenesis
4. STARLIMS
5. IDBS E-Workbook
6. Two custom-built, in-house LIMS

Challenge

Before QBench, the lab used spreadsheet manifests and different folders to track the statuses of samples and results. If a sample required multiple tests, results would be spread out among multiple instrument reports in different places. Answering a question about the results of a test was a 20-30 minute process.

Goals

1. Digitize sample and data management to improve sample processing, data visibility, and data integrity.
2. Allow internal stakeholders to see sample status and find results easily on their own and eliminate the lab supervisor having to dig through documents to answer one-off email requests for statuses and results reports.

How QBench Helped

We trained the lab supervisor on how to configure the LIMS and assisted her with setting up:

1. QBench spreadsheet worksheets for multiple multi-analyte assays.
2. A file parser to pull data from instruments directly into the LIMS.
3. Label configurations for samples, tests, equipment, and storage locations.
4. Set up a customer portal to allow their internal customers to access reports.

Putting in QBench:

1. Centralized all sample information, testing requests, and results.
2. Created a secure, compliant, centralized application that’s updated and maintained by QBench.

Results

1. Putting in QBench greatly increased efficiency, removed manual processes, removed duplication of work, and improved data integrity.
2. The QBench Customer Portal allows internal users to access status updates and results whenever they needed it, making what used to take 20-30 minutes to complete now take under 2 minutes.
3. The QBench Professional Services team implemented the software in a few of months rather than the nine months to one year the lab supervisor had experienced when implementing other LIMS.
4. QBench provided a better experience than seven other LIMS. The lab supervisor preferred QBench’s ease of use, ease of configuration, and fast implementation.

"QBench is easy to use and understand, allowing laboratory management to configure almost everything with minimal support needed. It is highly configurable while not overwhelming. Implementation is much faster than other systems due to the ease of use and configuration. Plus, QBench is constantly enhancing the product with new features and providing easily accessible help tools." Lab Supervisor at EO Science Lab