What are Lab Information Management Systems?

Typical Lab informatics system examples include lab information management systems, electronic lab notebooks, lab execution systems, scientific data management systems, instrument data systems, etc. All of these systems help in:

• Standardizing the lab workflows (data formats still need to be standardized as there are multiple platforms and instrument vendors with their proprietary formats): A step towards this is being taken by the Allotrope foundation to enforce adoption of standardized lab data exchange formats everywhere
• Enablement of workflow automation and hence ability to perform better data analytics and visualization
• Near real-time collaboration between researchers
• Tracking of a sample lifecycle from collection to final disposition, thus ensuring traceability
• Management of lab inventory
• Interfacing with lab instruments and other external systems like ERP