Autoscribe, a developer and supplier of Laboratory Information Management Systems (LIMS), has launched a new 'Requirements Definition' service to offer guidance in the early stages of choosing the most appropriate LIMS for a particular application. The company states that this new service will deliver a comprehensive User Requirements document at an extremely competitive price compared to large consultancy companies.
Autoscribe's founder and CEO, John Boother, explained: ‘One of the key aspects of a LIMS project is the definition of requirements, which should be produced in collaboration with all relevant departments and personnel that will be involved in the project. With our wealth of expertise in LIMS projects, we take great care to ensure that the report produced is balanced and independent and does not contain recommendations for any commercially available systems, thereby allowing the customer to be free to approach any LIMS vendor to see how their system would fulfil the requirements.’
The Requirements Definition service includes customer site visits, detailed discussions with all the appropriate personnel to identify all of the essential components as well as the desirable ones, before the production of an initial User Requirements document including, where needed, flow diagrams related to the work patterns and responsibilities.
This is then reviewed by the customer and revised through several iterations if necessary before the final document is delivered. Failure to adequately define user requirements can result in a LIMS project collapsing or failing to deliver the expected benefits. Beyond that, it can result in projects going over budget, with additional non-budgeted on-going costs for IT consultants on site for many months after delivery of the system.
