LIMS PROJECT PARTNER

A PROVEN PROJECT APPROACH TO SUCCESFULLY GUIDE YOU THROUGH THE ENTIRE

"LIMS" SELECTION AND IMPLEMENTATION PROJECT

USING THE POWER OF INDEPENDENT CONSULTANCY AND COACHING!

"LIMS"= LIMS/LIS/LES/ELN/SDMS/QMS ....

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LIMS Project Challenges

What makes running a LIMS selection & implementation project so difficult for most laboratories and
how LIMS Project Partner can make it easier, more efficient and successful!

Project Approach

Only few laboratories have the expert knowledge to successfully plan and execute a complex LIMS selection and implementation project. It is essential to setup a multistep selection procedure with the proper selection criteria after each step. Furthermore you need to gain the skills to stay in control of the project to avoid that vendors take control and steer the project towards their own solution.

In case you don't want to gain the necessary skills yourself, a solution is to hire an independent vendor-neutral expert. 

Real vendor neutral experts are very scarce. LIMS Project Partner has a broad network of laboratory informatics experts throughout the globe with a large variety of skills. We may be able to help match these to your particular needs.

Preparation

Unfortunately many laboratories enter a LIMS vendor selection ill prepared. Too many LIMS selections enter into the vendor selection (demo) phase prematurely. It is impossible to evaluate a demo against the right criteria when you haven't already gathered and documented the functional and vendor requirements first. What happens is that premature demo's are evaluated poorly and decisions are based on insufficient information. Implementation success rate of ill prepared vendor/solution selections drop significantly, resulting in projects going over budget & time and not delivering a usable outcome and dissatisfied users. Many laboratories do not know which preparation actions need to be taken in which order and which steps are essential and can't be skipped without compromising the project end-result.

We educate project members on how to run a LIMS selection project from start to finish towards the best match with the LIMS software & vendor service offering. We will guide the project team through all the necessary steps by means of coaching and an engaging member community for mutual sharing of knowledge and experience.

LIMS Project Partner provides training, coaching and hands-on support to equalize the knowledge/experience gap between customer and vendor. In this way the customer (lab) is able to stay in control of the project and can make decisions based on software functional features and vendor service capabilities.

Knowledge & Experience

Laboratories in general replace their LIMS every 10-15 years or sometimes even less. This means that most laboratories will not spend a significant amount of time to keep up-to-date with current market developments. Many of our customers asked us early on "what a modern LIMS can do". The better first question is "what functional capabilities does my new LIMS need to support my processes/workflows effectively and what do I need from the vendor to implement the LIMS within scope-budget and set timeframe". This gap in knowledge/experience, how understandable it may be, puts the laboratory in a serious disadvantage. Evaluating URS responses and demo's becomes significantly harder without the necessary knowledge and experience, making the expert help of an independent vendor-neutral consultant necessary.

Managing Vendors

Managing vendors is an essential part of a successful LIMS selection phase. At the start of a project, many inexperienced laboratory customers will, as a first step, contact vendors to gain knowledge and project guidance. Vendors love the opportunity to get in early into the project and offer their guidance. As attractive as it may seem to get (sometimes free) pre-sales consultants from a vendor to help you during the selection phase, it is not the recommended first step before you gathered and documented your requirements and know how your new LIMS will need to support your laboratory workflows.
Vendors will always have their own end-goal in mind: Selling their own software and services. 
Vendor consultants are very capable to gather requirements during the implementation phase, however they can't propose functional selection-requirements that might damage their chances to get the order.

LIMS Project Partner provides one-on-one coaching and (when needed) hands-on support to equalize the knowledge/experience gap so that the laboratory customer can stay in control and select the best LIMS for your needs, free from excessive vendor marketing & sales influences.

LIMS Project Partner is positioned between laboratory customer and vendors, providing project knowledge & experience to the laboratories and providing neutral guidance to vendors to be able to present their offering best suiting the interests of both vendor and customer.
In a sense, LIMS Project Partner offers guidance for all parties involved in the project for the benefit of the project end-result.

LIMS Project Partner's broad network of experiences resources can help in, at least partly, solving resource issues at both customers and vendors.
We also provide training & coaching and hands-on support to use your scarce resources as efficiently as possible. 

Resources

A LIMS selection & -implementation project needs the right resources to become successful. During the 60+ projects we completed successfully, we noticed that finding the right resources (people+skills+time) at both customers (laboratories) and vendors has been one of the major challenges during the execution of the projects. Many laboratories have little idea up front of the resources the execution of a successful LIMS selection and -implementation requires.
Vendor resource availability have also been a limiting and decisive factor in many selection and implementation projects. In many cases vendors have lost project due to lack of the right skilled resources in several project phases.

Request LIMS Project Consultancy / Coaching

LIMS Project Partner

What we do to make your project
easier, more efficient and ultimately more successful!

How to address LIMS selection & implementation challenges?

Represented in the graphic above, LIMS Project Partner made a comparison of a ways customers may address the common LIMS project challenges, starting from the selection phase. One conclusion was that it makes a lot of sense to involve vendor-independent resources to close the knowledge and experience gap(s) between customers and vendors. Another conclusion was that vendor-independent resources are not always easy to find and you need to make sure they are really independent. LIMS Project Partner is going to provide easy access to these vendor-independent resources, building on the knowledge and experience of LUFC LabConsultants and its founder Louis Uunk, who is known for providing vendor-independent services to 60+ projects for the last 15 years.

LIMS Project Partner services to manage these challenges!

LIMS Selection Coaching

LIMS Project Partner's coaching program is targeted towards an individual project team belonging to one company. This means that coaching will be adapted to your project team's specific needs. The coaching will be provided using our customized coaching approach.

The LIMS selection coaching program offers dedicated expert guidance for every part of the project. An independent LIMS selection consultant/coach will stand by your project team through regular online coaching and knowledge transfer sessions. 

LIMS Project Partner provides guidance during several parts of the project:
 

  • Project preparation & management involvement.
  • Project approach, do's and don'ts.
  • Business analysis & business case.
  • "As-Is" => "To-Be" transition.
  • Workflow charting and workflow optimization.
  • Determining the role of the new LIMS in your company's IT landscape.
  • URS, RFI, RFP documentation.
  • Vendor selection procedure.
  • Vendor demonstration phase.
  • Selection criteria and decision process.
  • Transition towards implementation.

Depending on the status of your project, not all of the above might be applicable. During an intake session, the coaching program will be tailored to your project team’s specific needs and translated into an offer for a tailored coaching program.

LIMS Implementation Coaching

The way LIMS Project Partner delivers LIMS implementation coaching is similar to the LIMS selection coaching. The project coaching topics and the role of the consultant/coach are however very different.

LIMS Project Partner's consultant/coach does not take over the role of the vendor-consultant or project manager. The consultant/coach will operate from a steering-role between customer and vendor. 

The consultant/coach may be involved in one or more of the following:
 

  • Provide project structure
  • Safeguard essential steps
  • Efficient and effective coaching
  • Knowledge and experience transfer
  • Project steering
  • Safeguard optimal end-result based on your requirements
  • Make sure customer stays in control
  • Assist in vendor management in case of project hick-ups or disagreements.

Request LIMS Project Consultancy / Coaching

WLN hired Louis Uunk to guide us during the process of selecting a new LIMS. The prime topic was for WLN to identify which software/vendor would best suit WLN's requirements for a new system and whether that solution would be able to replace the current LIMS system. Louis's guidance during the entire process has been excellent. Especially the LabInfoScan and URS parts have proven to be very valuable. His extended market knowledge also proved to be very valuable during the evaluations of the vendor responses and the demonstrations. With Louis's help WLN succeeded in making an informed decision for its new LIMS solution.

Jan van der Kooi

Laboratory Manager
WLN

Louis Uunk has provided tremendous value during the selection of our LIMS/ELN. His experience and knowledge in the laboratory information management area have been very valuable during our process towards identifying the requirements that our knowledge centre and its laboratories set towards a LIMS/ELN. Louis made sure that we evaluated our processes and procedure very closely and documented the result in a URS. Finally Louis guided and supported us during the vendor selection process, pointing out differences and what that would mean to us, however never showing any personal preference. I recommend contacting Louis whenever you need to select and implement a new LIMS/ELN, especially when you have limited experience yourself.

Ronald Italiaander

Laboratory Manager
KWR Water Research Institute

In 2017 we asked Louis Uunk to guide and support us during the selection of a laboratory information management software solution. The project consisted of 3 parts: a LabInfoScan (map current and future processes/workflow; URS and the final vendor/software selection. We value Louis's contribution as very useful. There are many different software solutions, Louis has both laboratory workflow and LIMS market knowledge and experience, that enable him to suggest the right vendor candidates to include in the vendor selection. Louis meets upfront planning and appointments. Having expert guidance during a LIMS selection was very valuable.

Hilde Rosing

Laboratory Team Leader
Netherlands Cancer Institute (NKI)

In 2022 Louis Uunk has supported BaseClear during a LIMS selection. Louis used a thorough project approach (LabInfoScan) to identify BaseClear's process improvement potential. With Louis's knowledge and experience, "To- be" processes were drafted which in turn were translated into a detailed URS. We were able to select a new LIMS that meets our requirements, thanks to Louis's well defined and thorough selection approach. Louis's support, advice and project methology have been very valuable during all steps of our LIMS selection. Communication and cooperation with Louis were very pleasant and constructive. I highly recommend Louis's support and advice during a LIMS selection to organizations without adequate knowledge and experience in this matter.

Jan-Peter Heutink

Interim Manager Microbiology & Sanger Sequencing BaseClear