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Preserving Water Quality at the Rijnland

Water Board

By purchasing an advanced Laboratory Information Management System the Rijnland Water Board were awarded greater flexibility in its work, creating the basis for making a dream come true.

The Netherlands has dozens of water boards distributed throughout its provinces. Water boards are government organizations responsible for managing the quality of surface water. In other words, their job is to keep low-lying areas from flooding and to ensure that water presents no risks to the well being of people, animals and the environment. The monitoring this involves requires the conducting of chemical, physical and bacteriological analyses in its laboratories. These laboratory findings serve as input for the management and quality control policies pursued by the water board and other levels of government.  It is for this reason that they consider the provision of quality, efficient operations and good communication so important. Within this framework, the introduction of a comprehensive information system at its laboratory was an opportunity to continue improvement of other processes at the same time – an operation resulting in considerable changes for almost everyone in the organization.

The parties most directly involved with the Rijnland Water Board are its approximately 60 “internal” customers. These are water purification plants, project managers and their staff, licensing authorities and supervisory civil servants. In 1987 an AS400 computer system was customized with a LIMS, to provide these parties direct access to data. It was later found – once the focus on environmental needs and the need to improve and manage the quality of the laboratory increased so dramatically – that this kind of customizing failed to promote flexibility. The number of analyses grew, as did the number of quality improvement projects. Time and again, the customized software had to be adjusted to meet these demands, and it sometimes took months to accomplish these changes. In 1999, it was finally concluded that additional maintenance would not be that much less expensive than purchasing a new package.

Requirements

The decision to buy a completely new LIMS package was also an opportunity for management to propose new objectives for other related activities. Here was a chance to realize a dream they had had for a long time: an organization that was not restricted in its operations by the limitations of a software system and that could also operate more efficiently. The list they then proposed included the following main requirements:

	Connecting the new LIMS to the existing AS400 mainframe. The internal customers would have to retain their access to an enormous amount of data and histories stored here. The transfer of data could take place during a later phase.
	It would have to have a comprehensive module at its disposal to plan sampling and analysis processes. Having these processes run more smoothly would reduce the number of hours employees were working.
	The system would have to be very user friendly and be able to carry out many kinds of checks automatically so that responsibilities could be delegated to people lower in the organization’s structure.
	Its service would have to be extended to simplify and speed up plans, spur-of-the-moment responses, interim reports, trend analyses and management reports. Anyone preparing these documents would also have to be able to determine how they would look and not be limited in this regard by the system.
	A direct connection between instruments and the LIMS would be required so that analysis findings could be automatically entered, checked and reported.
	The package would need to include a financial model to calculate costs and draw up offers and invoices.
	Making any desired changes in the system would need to be done quickly and offer the possibility of developing these within the organization.

Due to this last requirement in particular, the Rijnland Water Board decided in early 2000 not to purchase the same package being purchased by their colleagues at other water boards. The most important factor in this decision was that Rijnland did not want anything to do with waiting for software changes that would have to be done through the supplier and after consulting with other similar users. This was the kind of straightjacket they wanted to eliminate at almost any cost since it would needlessly slow down the dream they wanted to realise. Instead, the project team decided on the StarLIMS package from Lab-Data Management Systems.

Implementation Experiences

The months that followed were used to design and set up the new package. Its implementation took place in phases. To delegate responsibilities to staff in lower positions within the organization required a lot of discussion with these direct users. Small groups were taken aside to examine many of their daily activities, especially in terms of how these activities could be improved by using the LIMS. Since the users often made decisions as based on their specific knowledge, everyone became very much aware that everything he/she did could be of importance to others. Their involvement with colleagues in other teams increased as well. On the other side of the coin was the fact that the managers were thus required to spend much more of their supervisory time in these activities than had been estimated.

The intensive cooperation with the supplier’s specialists, meanwhile, was fantastic. The young, enthusiastic specialists knew a lot about the organization and were good at spotting deficiencies in the thinking patterns of their client. Their can-do motto was, “Every difficult question is simply a challenge, and nothing is impossible.”

Changes

The new LIMS led to major desired changes in the organization.Management was particularly affected during the first phase of implementation – a double system was in operation, certain forms of resistance among users had to be overcome, and management was suddenly confronted with many more management tools, some of which were unfamiliar to them. Now however, not even six months after making the final switch, the benefits are becoming apparent. The first complete annual logistics plan was ready in 14 days. Before, this had taken a quarter of a man-year to accomplish. It was specialized work because a good plan depended on a tremendous number of factors such as the capacities of equipment, the workforce available, transport available, etc. If the person specializing in any of these areas was sick, there was a big problem. In case of disasters, more analyses would have to be conducted as well – a situation sometimes accompanied by peak workloads at the laboratory. The new planning module keeps track of all these factors automatically. Plans are thus much easier to make, and extra time can be predicted or peak workloads leveled out sooner. And management reports can be generated in all kinds of ways to shed more light on all processes for the short and long-term future.

The technical changes being made at the water board make little difference to its customers.  They still have access to their data in the same way as before since this data is being provided by the LIMS in the background. What they do notice, however, is the more efficient planning and the more detailed ways of reporting information. At their request, any of the 500 to 600 measuring points can be sampled at fixed intervals, on fixed dates or at a certain frequency that they determine themselves. With this data, Rijnland’s LIMS draws up a measuring plan and, if desired, an offer. Between measuring intervals, customers receive a progress report earlier than they did before and can use it as needed to make adjustments. This one-on-one approach to customers will be further extended during 2003.

For the ten sample collectors, dealing with the new planning module was a major change. Due to improved planning, an overlap in sampling no longer occurs, so their potential for carrying out activities can be better coordinated with that of the laboratory. Right in line with the expansion of responsibilities at lower levels is the fact that the sample collectors’ tasks, too, are being increased; meanwhile their risk of making errors is minimized. They receive work lists that indicate what material they have to take with them and how the sample is to be collected. They take the measurements, record the field observations and now maintain the field measuring equipment at indicated times. They enjoy their work more and feel more involved as they have a greater variety of tasks and responsibilities.

Obviously, the work being done by the lab personnel has changed as well. Instead of assigning a certain person the boring job of entering all the findings, each analyst enters this data him/herself. The lab personnel also have a better picture of which activities still have to be completed and a better idea of the status of the samples still being processed. Since the StarLIMS can also access historic data and links exist between sampling points and findings, the system can decide automatically, as based on any dramatic changes, whether an analysis has to be repeated. Historical data can also be utilized to provide the proper method and sequence of analysis. If a high concentration of chloride is found, for example, another method should be used to determine chemical oxygen consumption than when the chloride concentration is low. When dealing with samples where this may occur (as known by previous measurements), it would therefore be better to measure the chloride level first and then establish the method for measuring chemical oxygen consumption. In other cases, such an approach would be unnecessary. Lims Software Manager,Wim de Mooij

Financial accounting is also involved in the changes resulting from the LIMS. Cost price calculations are now simple routine procedures, and offers are generated completely by computer. These capabilities may be extended in the future with the addition of automatic invoicing. Ultimately, the costs of the laboratory (about three million euros a year) will also have to be charged somewhere.

Within the brief time that the system has been fully operational, people have come to realize its indispensability for accomplishing the daily tasks engaged in by almost every work group at the water board. Even so, there are yet countless plans for putting it to even more beneficial use. Besides the instruments currently linked to the LIMS, the remaining instruments will be soon linked to it. All measurement data and instrument parameters will then be transferred automatically to the LIMS – a move that will further exclude human error and improve the tractability of findings. Management plans to continue arranging the organization’s qualities and achievements in line with its proposed objectives and to become quicker at anticipating the many changes the future is sure to bring. The dream is becoming a reality. At the same time, it is also being realized with the conviction that the current LIMS will develop along with any changes the future has in store. Until now, the can-do motto is being completely substantiated.

This is an edited version of an article published in the Dutch magazine Chemisch Weekblad, October 2000