With a LIMS, technical-physical testing labs can quickly and easily support the implementation of accreditation requirements
The assessment services of testing labs are of great importance in numerous sectors of the economy, as they ensure the reliable quality and safety of products, processes and services. It is therefore essential for testing and calibration laboratories to enjoy a high level of trust and credibility. Accreditation in accordance with ISO/IEC 17025 is the means of choice for demonstrating quality and technical competence.
An intended or imminent accreditation is also one of the reasons why customers decide to implement a laboratory management system (LIMS), as dacore CEO Werner Fink explains. „This is actually a very good reason. However, it is often associated with a misconception, which is expressed in the question: Can your LIMS ISO 17025?“
Customized individual software solution
According to Fink, the question is wrong for two reasons. Firstly, there is no such thing as „the dacore LIMS“, but rather customer-specific LIMS, which may have common or similar functions, but are each very different versions of a system. And secondly, because the question equates two different entities:
„Accreditation is not a software specification, but a process issue. The standards describe requirements for a quality management system. Many of these requirements are not of a technical nature.
Nevertheless, a LIMS from dacore can play a key role in an accreditation project. Numerous dacore LIMS functions support ISO 17025, including many quality management functions that run in the background, such as data transparency, searchability, history functions, project overview, rights management and many more.
Integrated quality management
However, numerous QM functions that are included as standard in the starter package, such as measuring equipment management, improvement and complaint management, approval workflow, document management and more, also explicitly support accreditation. This also applies in particular to the electronic QM system or manual - an optional function of the LIMS. It enables integrated quality management, for example through links to other information and documents such as risk and opportunity assessment, supplier assessment and quality matrix.
For Fink, the greatest advantage of quality management integrated in this way is that all topics, information blocks and documents that relate to each other in terms of content can also be brought into this relationship.
„Digitization does not mean transforming paper into digital form, but rather integrating information,“ emphasizes Fink.
It is obvious that an integrated quality management system, such as the LIMS from dacore, significantly supports, facilitates and accelerates an accreditation process - also because all relevant information and meta-information such as status or revision can be compiled quickly and easily during an audit.
Compulsory instead of optional: Laboratory management according to ISO 17025
For Fink, there is no question that accreditation in accordance with ISO 17025 is absolutely essential for testing and calibration laboratories. „Accreditation is a competitive requirement today. If an independent laboratory wants to survive on the market, it is even a mandatory requirement,“ says Fink.
There are still a few „without“ manufacturer laboratories - although the trend here is clearly towards accreditation, as Philipp Zinnkann, responsible for sales and marketing at dacore, adds.
„For manufacturing laboratories, accreditation is particularly useful as proof that they have done everything necessary to ensure the safety and quality of products,“ says Zinnkann.
He cites yet another advantage: Accreditation also confirms the technical competence of the laboratory. „Of course, this is also an aspect that has nothing to do with software, but is usefully supported by a LIMS in that relevant information and documents are digitally correlated and can therefore be retrieved quickly,“ says Zinnkann.
One thing is certain: there is hardly any way around accreditation in accordance with ISO 17025 - and this path can be covered much more quickly with the help of a LIMS.