• CSols Laboratory Informatics Software and Services
• CSols Links for LIMS™
• CSols Remote Sampler™
• CSols AqcTools™
• CSols PrepLab™
• BactiAnalyst™
• CSols LabCache™
• Custom Laboratory Informatics Software Solutions

CSols Laboratory Informatics Software Products

CSols Links for LIMS™
Instrument and Laboratory Systems Integration software helps maximize your investment in instrumentation by helping analysts easily interact with their instruments and report quality lab results. Analysts are easily able to review the result data being produced rather than relying on tedious manual entry or complex file conversions.

Shewhart Charting and Exceptions Reporting of Statistical Data for Quality Control Samples

CSols AqcTools™ – AQC Shewhart Quality Control Charting Software helps you meet regulatory requirements for investigating and actioning limit failures and rule breaches

shewhart charts in excel - replace with CSols AqcTools Charting Software

Is that pending UKAS, DWI / ISO 17025 or ISO 15189 audit stressing you out?
Do you have too many Excel spreadsheet quality control charts and macros to update and review?
Are those regulated Methods using Excel spreadsheets truly in control?
Is there increasing regulatory and commercial pressure to handle those QC exceptions and still get those Quality Lab Results delivered on time?
Do you need to check AQCs / IQCs against Levey-Jennings / Westgard Rules?

CSols AqcTools™ allows users to dynamically display AQC charts so that they and Quality Managers can more readily meet regulatory requirements for investigating and actioning limit failures and rule breaches.

AqcTools allows Quality Personnel to view many reports including: exceptions, trend and uncertainty of measurement reports.

An extremely powerful feature of AqcTools is reporting which simplifies regulatory compliance eg with UKAS, DWI, EU, EA, NEN, CEC and ISO regulations, guidelines and standards.

The Microsoft® SQL Server or Oracle® AqcTools database has standard report selection criteria that include reporting by Year, Month or Date Range. Users can also select one or all AQCs to report, select by Data Group or select by a specific AQC and other stored AQC data.

The following AqcTools reports can be run as required:

Trend Summary
Exception Summary
Micro Exception Summary
Analyst Related Exceptions
Excluded Results

and importantly:

Dataset Comparison Reports which include:

Limit Suitability which enables the user to review the limits for an AQC /DataGroup for a specified time period against the current limits. F & T test data is also displayed. See below for an example report.

Uncertainty of Measurement (UoM) which is required to be reported by EU regulations,CEC Test Methods and laboratories accredited to ISO/IEC17025.

Rolling RSD and Bias
Providing there are sufficient historical Results available, AqcTools can be used to automatically calculate rolling values for the Relative Standard Deviation and Bias associated with a particular Result. The number of points to use in the rolling calculations can be specified by the user.
AqcTools software supports:

• importing historical data such as Quality Analyst files
• integration any LIMS system
• integration with analytical laboratory instrument data using CSols Links for LIMS™
• manually entering results data eg for non-analytical instrument techniques
• importing data from formatted Excel files
• the creation and management of exception reports for regulatory compliance

AQC Exceptions Reporting
When an Exception is raised the cause of the breach can be Investigated and any appropriate Actions carried out.

AqcTools provides comprehensive functionality to manage and report Laboratory Control Sample Exceptions:

• when all actions are complete by Signing off the Exception
• completing the Action form
• when all actions are complete Signing off the Exception
• creating resolved and unresolved Exception reports for one or more
AQCs / Analytical Methods

Outstanding or partially completed Exceptions appear on an Unresolved Exceptions Report. Completed Exceptions appear on a Resolved Exceptions Report.

Summary

AqcTools provides a powerful, convenient, cost effective and dedicated mechanism for analysts to perform those AQC statistical manipulations required by regulatory authorities.

When combined with Links for LIMS™, analysts get very timely feedback on those subtle changes that are effecting result quality, so that poor quality results are not released for use. QA Managers are able to deploy and manage AqcTools to meet regulatory requirements.

Pending UKAS/DWI Audit? Implement CSols AqcTools

Pending UKAS/DWI Audit? Implement CSols AqcTools

Further Information
For further information or a demonstration of CSols Industry Leading, Trusted, Field Proven, Analytical Quality Control Sample Charting, Statistical Reporting and Exceptions Management Software please email us at: aqctools@csols.com, or ask us a question via our enquiry page.
CSols Ltd. The Heath, Runcorn, Cheshire, WA7 4QX, UK
Tel: +44 (0) 1928 513535 Fax: +44 (0) 7006 061106
Web: www.csols.com

CSols Remote Sampler™ for Mobile Data Capture and External Site Remote Sampling

CSols Remote Sampler™

Obtaining samples is a critical and labour intensive task carried out by organizations of all types. The actual process of collection and recording has benefited little from advances in computerization. However driven by the overwhelming need to:

reduce the costs of collection,
provide a paperless chain of custody throughout the life of the sample
to meet regulatory requirements e.g. UK Drinking Water Inspectorate (DWI), MCerts, UKAS, Food Standards Agency
to take full advantage of those highly automated systems like LIMS already in place in laboratories

CSols have developed the Remote Sampler ruggedized handheld Windows tablet PC solution for external remote sampling and sample collection.

Remote Sampler Design
CSols Remote Sampler solution consists of ruggedized handheld tablet PCs (usually one per sampler). The system also utilizes a hub workstation based in the laboratory which can also be deployed over Citrix. The hardware is then combined with software and utilities to help users integrate the system easily into their organization's routine operations.

Handheld Computers
Remote sampling is carried in a wide range of different settings by personnel with varying roles and expertise. CSols used the following criteria to select the right handheld device for Remote Sampler:

• ruggedized – robust for use in harsh environments and handling
• large screen for easy to use operation with menus and wizards
• usable with finger and pointers
• support for , GPRS / Mobile Broadband and Bluetooth
• incorporates support for barcode or RFID label reading
• usable with finger and stylus / pointer
• uses a common operating system for portability as new hardware becomes available

PDAs/Tablet PCs from Gotive, Motion Computing and Panasonic have been successfully deployed:

CSols Remote Sampler Windows 7 Tablet PC for Water Quality Remote Sampling

Motion Computing F5 Tablet PC

Hub Workstation and LIMS
A workstation normally located in the laboratory or sample storage location running the CSols Hub software provides the interface between the handheld devices and the laboratory LIMS or IT system. Planned or ad hoc collection runs and associated instructions are extracted and downloaded and later uploaded to all active handheld devices.

Making life easy for the sampler
Design of the software on both the handheld and hub systems has then been done in combination with a number of end users to maximize usability and to meet their technical requirements. Here a few of the key capabilities of Remote Sampler system are described in more detail.

Bottle collection
When bottles, tubes or plates are used to collect samples it is important to ensure the unique identifier on the container is correctly matched to each sample and that the time and position of the sampling is taken. The Remote Sampler software uses the built in barcode reader and GPS co-ordinates to capture this data.

On site testing
In the event that the sampler needs to record additional parameters or carry out tests while on site, the Remote Sampler software first prompts the sampler, then guides them, via a wizard, through the process to ensure all of the correct information is captured.

GPS tracking and phone connectivity

The inherent connectivity incorporated into the handheld device provides a number of useful functions:

• recording the co-ordinates of the collection point
• transmission of the sampling event to the laboratory in advance of arrival to help with scheduling
• helping the sampler to find the sample location. Especially useful for emergency, ad hoc sampling or rarely sampled locations.

Summary
CSols Remote Sampler solution is a powerful and flexible system to support the collection and recording of external samples of all types.

Real experiences from projects carried out in the Water Industry have proven that the following benefits are possible:

• significant time savings during the processing of schedules and reception of samples
• flexibility to cope with emergency samples and switches of collection runs
• elimination of all paper transcription errors
• improvements in sample integrity and accuracy of data collection
• rock solid compliance with a full location audit

More information
For a copy of the Remote Sampler Technical article, further information or a demonstration of Remote Sampler please ask via our enquiry page or email us at: remotesampler@csols.com.

CSols Ltd. The Heath, Runcorn, Cheshire, WA7 4QX, UK
Tel: +44 (0) 1928 513535 Fax: +44 (0) 7006 061106
Web: www.csols.com

BactiAnalyst™

BactiAnalyst™ is a ruggedized paper-less PDA solution for microbiological laboratories in commercial or government organizations analyzing water, food or other sample types. If you are performing microbiological / bacteriological testing and want to eliminate your paperwork systems and improve turnarounds times and traceability then CSols BactiAnalyst™ system could be the solution for you. Read More>>>
CSols LabCache™

Even if you have a LIMS system you may not be able to easily find then access all that raw data and SOP's that were used to produce specific results. CSols LabCache is a database system designed to collect and store every data item being collected in the lab whether you have a LIMS system or do not. Read More>>>
How can we help you?

We have been interfacing laboratory instruments, LIMS and IT / Corporate data systems since 1990 and producing handheld solutions since 2008. Please see examples of our Laboratory Informatics Solutions for different laboratories below and let us know how we can best help you.

CSols Products

Links for LIMS™

AqcTools™ for Shewhart charting, statistical analysis and AQC exceptions reporting

Remote Sampler™ for External Site Sampling

BactiAnalyst™ – Handheld software solution for MicroBiology Laboratories

PrepLab™

Custom Laboratory Informatics Software Solutions

LabCache™ Laboratory Database

CSols Services

CSols Services:

Implementation Services for all Analytical Laboratories

Going ‘Beyond the Technology' with CSols Informatics Solutions

CSols Training & Support



CSols Ltd. The Heath, Runcorn, Cheshire, WA7 4QX, UK

Tel: +44 (0) 1928 513535 Fax: +44 (0) 7006 061 106
Web: www.csols.com

AqcTools Links for LIMS Remote Sampler Informatics Contact Us Enquiry

Custom Laboratory Informatics Software Solutions

Custom Laboratory Informatics Software Solutions

CSols offers the following custom software development services:

• custom applications on Microsoft Windows systems including PDAs / Tablet PCs
• custom Internet client / server applications in Java
• custom database applications using MS Access, Oracle or MS SQL Server

CSols Implementation Services

Our team of professional software engineers have written many custom applications for clients in a number of diverse industries and applications. We always develop software to our own externally audited procedures so that software can be easily deployed in a GxP, GAMP, DWI, ISO 17025, NELAC or FDA 21 CFR Part 11 compliance setting.

If requested, we can provide documentation of our custom work including Quality/Test Plans, Functional Specifications, Design Specifications, Code Reviews, Unit Testing, Integration Testing, Acceptance Testing, and IQ, OQ, PQ procedures.

Further Information
For further information about CSols Custom Software Development please feel free to ask us via our enquiry page or just telephone or email us at: custom_software@csols.com .

CSols Ltd. The Heath, Runcorn, Cheshire, WA7 4QX, UK
Tel: +44 (0) 1928 513535 Fax: +44 (0) 7006 061106
Web: www.csols.com

CSols Solutions for Water and Environmental Laboratories

CSols Informatics Solutions for Water and Environmental LaboratoriesWater and Environmental analytical laboratories perform a very wide range of analytical techniques for inorganic, organic and physical determinands (DETS) at medium to high throughput sample capacity. Such labs need to be able to produce quality results quickly and economically, with consistent turnaround times, and meet the requirements of accreditation bodies such as the DWI and UKAS.We've used both our Links for LIMS and AqcTools software extensively in water laboratories to reduce the time and effort required for analysts to drive their each instrument and produce finished results. Many water companies have standardized on Links for LIMS.

More recently our handheld (PDA and Tablet PC) based software called Remote Sampler has also been helping improve efficiencies by providing a transcription free sample collection system which can interface with LIMS. In the microbiology section of water companies our handheld (PDA) BactiAnalyst system is also improving laboratory workflows by eliminating all paperwork.

To help you assess how we might be able to help you with your own challenges, there follows below a variety of information and links to create a useful general resource. We will also describe some of the solutions that we have prepared in more detail. We hope you find this helpful but if you cannot find the exact solution you are looking for, just let us know and we'll be happy to discuss your needs further. Just click on CSols Contact details.

Links for LIMS software solution for Thermo Scientific Aquakem (Konelab) and Gallery instruments

Thermo Scientific Aquakem (Konelab) and Gallery instruments are often operated in water or environmental monitoring laboratories as they offer low cost per analysis and very rapid analysis times. As the instruments are largely a ‘walk away' design with easy loading of reagents and samples, these instruments are popular choices for busy laboratories.

These instruments produce an attractive results print out for completed runs and with the volume of results generated per sample there are significant financial and quality benefits from linking these results electronically to a LIMS or other IT system. However as the instrument is self optimizing, analysis is conducted in a different order to that scheduled by the operator making interpretation of any electronic result file extremely complex.

The Role of Links for LIMS

Driver programs developed for Links for LIMS are able to overcome the complexity involved and allow the results to be read like any other instrument system. As with other instruments, Links for LIMS then compliments the routine operation of the instrument software and offers the following additional capabilities:

• more extensive instrument run sequence building with direct access to LIMS or external IT systems and ability to store the fields needed for full data synchronization
• the ability to accept and process dilution factor overrides for contaminated samples and easily move them in the run
• reading and extraction of the data from the instrument result file and synchronization with all sample information
• data analysis of the results with a variety of calculations, handling of duplicates, data formatting and/or rounding, recovery calculations as well as automatic drift and blank correction
• performance verification with statistical checking and charting of AQCs, flagging of failures, monitoring Internal standard signals and calibrations
• easily download ‘reportable' results to LIMS or other IT data systems and Excel, Access, or MS SQL Server and Oracle database systems.

Benefits

• the time it takes to build sample queues and synchronize samples with LIMS
• the time to process and analyze results
• the speed and ease in which they can validate the instrument's performance

CSols clients typically achieve often return on investment (ROI) with their CSols software for each instrument in less than a year.

Solution – NI Water integrates LIMS and remote samplers

Northern Ireland Water (NI Water) is a government-owned company (GoCo) set up in April 2007, is the sole provider of water and sewerage services in Northern Ireland. There are approximately 795,000 domestic, agricultural, commercial and business properties in Northern Ireland connected to the public water supply and 660,000 connected to the public sewerage system. NI Water supplies 625 million litres of clean water every day for almost 1.7 million people and treats 134 million m3 of waste water each year. The company installed a Thermo Scientific SampleManager LIMS system in order to improve the efficiency of its sample management process and the integrity of the samples collected from the field.

However in order for them to ensure the integrity of the whole sampling process they decided to purchase and implement CSols Remote Sampler system. Remote Sampler is a handheld (PDA) computer based system which helps field based samplers follow the process they currently follow without having to use paper worksheets. As well as navigating samplers to their scheduled collection locations, the Remote Sampler software also allows field measurements to be taken and recorded in situ. Remote Sampler also collates this with bottle ids, GPS coordinates and stores this information on the PDA device. This information like can then be transmitted back to the LIMS via broadband mobile links to save time, reduce transcription errors as well as providing a comprehensive audit trail.

Benefits

Northern Ireland Water (NIW) have enjoyed the following benefits from Remote sampler:

• the average number of samples collected per sampler per day has increased helping more easily meet the regulatory requirements and helping free up more
sampler time for emergency situations
• there are significant saving per day in printing our worksheets and registering results into LIMS (up to two man hours per day)
• NIW has a complete audit trail for clean, trade and effluent sample collection.

Further Information

To discuss your requirements further or to request a demonstration of Links for LIMS, AqcTools, Remote Sampler or BatciAnalyst please feel free to contact CSols via our enquiry page or just telephone or email us at we@csols.com. We look forward to helping you solve your user and regulatory requirements.

CSols Ltd. The Heath, Runcorn, Cheshire, WA7 4QX, UK
Tel: +44 (0) 1928 513535 Fax: +44 (0) 7006 061106
Web: www.csols.com

Find Us

CSols address is: The Heath Business Park, Runcorn, Cheshire WA7 4QX. Please collect your badge from The Heath Business & Technical Park, main visitor entrance and Conference Centre located in Heath Boulevard. Directions from Liverpool: Cross the Widne