Laboratory intelligence: construction standards for digital laboratories, networking of equipment and IT systems

The digital laboratory is mainly realized through the digitization of laboratory data and the networking of equipment and IT systems. The digitization of laboratory data is a severe challenge in the daily work of the laboratory. There are already many different types of electronic laboratory records (ELNs) and laboratory information management systems (LIMS) available, but not all laboratories use a unified system to manage digital files. The development of certain mobile input devices, such as tablet computers and smart phones, is conducive to the application and promotion of digital systems. Many laboratories use data in completely different data formats, such as the common data formats of Word, Excel, PDF and image formats, and often use some special format data.　

I. Digitization of laboratory data

In order to be able to use these data on a larger scale, it is necessary to manage and organize data according to the process of data generation. Image data and data in other formats are compared with each other. There is no need to compare all the spectra side by side. It is enough to compare the comparable spectra files with each other. To use big data, you must first solve the problem of small data, but most experiments The problem in both offices is that there are too many small data but it is difficult to correlate.

In the process of using big data, the first step is to formulate standards. Using the established standards, the data during the experiment can be easily aggregated, sorted and classified, and compared with each other. But so far it has not been able to unify the format of interdisciplinary laboratory data.

II. Networking of equipment and IT systems

Experimental equipment and testing instruments are regarded as laboratory data acquisition equipment, they can record and generate large amounts of data. These data are often stored in a networked computer. If there is no network interface, it can be stored in a network drive. Due to the problems caused by the distributed equipment configuration between different working groups, the unimpeded transmission of data is restricted. It is difficult to automatically establish a one-to-one correspondence between the result data of the instrument and the data of the laboratory report file even with a USB flash drive Link.

In order to fill the gap between laboratory equipment and IT systems, equipment manufacturers, laboratory supplies manufacturers, scientific research institutions and pharmaceutical companies have jointly established an international organization called "SiLA Rapid Integration" to develop laboratory equipment Unified standard for equipment control. The purpose of this standard is that equipment produced by different manufacturers has a unified interface, the so-called PMS process management system interface. This PMS process management system interface can be logged in and accessed through a web server or a secure connection via the Internet.

In this way, workers in the same laboratory can log in to access the network on different computers. The logged-in computer can be a different computer in the same building, or any computer in another area. Visit a piece of equipment to input process parameters and receive equipment data at the same time. In an automated control environment, you can also remotely control or monitor the entire detection process or file entry process.

There are different ways to integrate various instruments and equipment in the automation standards of the SiLA laboratory. For example, through a driver compatible with SiLA laboratory automation, it can incorporate equipment communications that do not comply with the standards into the management of the network server. The SiLA interface converter can provide a compatible platform for instrument operation, and establish communication with the process management system via a network server. In the plan, the SILA compatible platform connects the third party with the process management system through the web server, which helps the compatibility of various equipment, and can connect the instruments and equipment installed in the laboratory with the IT network system in the laboratory. .

III, the establishment of data equipment connection standards

Many successful cases have shown that it is possible to realize the connection between various instruments in the laboratory. However, the connection between the digital test record and the laboratory management system LIMS, but this connection is often complicated and costly. In the future, perhaps laboratory instruments and equipment can be connected out of the box. Integrating digital experiment records into a process management system compatible with the laboratory automation standard SiLA, just like the scheme developed by the Fraunhofer Institute in cooperation with Labfolder, can greatly simplify the routine connection of a large number of laboratory equipment.

The next necessary plan is to formulate a unified connection protocol standard. Only with the standard can the data detected on the equipment and the filled-in digital experiment records be correlated. The purpose of this standard is to establish a basic platform and to be able to see the data stored in the basic platform to the maximum extent. When the past data is automatically used in the optimization of the new process, the integrated and flexible laboratory becomes easy to use in the process, which can be said to truly realize the application of big data.