While some of the features of these other applications also exists in STARLIMS they don’t necessarily meet the full set of requirements needed by most end users. This is why STARLIMS is out of the box ready to support integration with the most common types of information systems that a LIMS solution needs to integrate with. In addition, STARLIMS provides a powerful toolset to allow customers to rapidly and easily create new interfaces when needed.

A common question is “Why is it necessary for a LIMS to have this data (or access to it?)”. This whitepaper highlights several areas where the LIMS typically needs access to data that can be primarily maintained in 3rd party systems. Additionally this document describes how STARLIMS provides out of the box support for interfacing with each type of system, the technologies used and examples on why the integration is necessary on a per system basis.

Another question commonly asked is “Why not just have the laboratory personnel use the other applications to accomplish this work, and not do it in the LIMS?”. This is a question of efficiency. If a lab analyst must use 5 different applications to accomplish their daily work, then they are undoubtedly less efficient than if they could learn and use a single system. The wide popularity of smartphones as a phone, camera, music player, game player, mini-computer, and internet device has proven this point from a consumer level. Abbott’s Informatics business has proven this point from within the laboratory with its comprehensive STARLIMS web-based solution.