An environmental LIMS keeps the sample against the site it was drawn from and the clock it was drawn under: a water LIMS or wastewater LIMS records the sampling point, the collection time, the chain of custody and the method's holding time, because a result on a sample past its holding time is not a result. Environmental monitoring systems laboratory records add the lab's own environment, the fridge temperatures and the blank results, and laboratory environmental monitoring is the same record pointed at the lab rather than the river. This page is about those records for a small testing lab, and the free sample intake and turnaround sheet on this site works the turnaround against the holding times from the lab's own numbers with no account.
The site and the custody
Every sample carries the sampling point, the collector, the collection time and every hand it passed through; the chain of custody is the record, and an environmental LIMS keeps it as fields with a signature rather than a paper form in a drawer. EPA's quality management tools describe what a program's records must show; the lab's own quality manager reads them.
Holding times as the clock in a water LIMS
Each method fixes how long a sample may wait between collection and analysis; the turnaround the lab runs at decides whether it meets them. The intake sheet on this site works the turnaround at the lab's own load, four working days on the worked example, and a water LIMS that flags the holding time against it is doing the environmental part of the job.
Laboratory environmental monitoring: the lab itself
Fridge and freezer temperatures, blanks, duplicates and spikes per batch are the laboratory environmental monitoring record, and the quality control sheet on this site works what the QC samples cost per month. Limslane Pro keeps the site, the custody, the holding time and the QC against every sample at one flat price.
Questions people ask about environmental lims
What is an environmental LIMS?
The sample record with the site, the collection time, the chain of custody and the method's holding time, plus the lab's own monitoring record.
What does a wastewater LIMS add?
The sampling point and the permit's parameters against every result, with the custody and holding time the regulator asks for.
How do holding times relate to turnaround?
Turnaround at the lab's load must sit inside the method's holding time; the free intake sheet works the turnaround from five figures.