The safefood Training & Mobility Programme enables safefood Knowledge Network members to visit and spend time in another organisation to develop their knowledge/expertise in an area related to the scope of the safefood Knowledge Networks. In the following report Gerard Doody gives an overview of his TMP funded trip to the Labware European Customer Conference, Spain. Gerard Doody is Quality Manager of ISO 17025 and Labware LIMS administrator at the Public Health laboratory, University Hospital Waterford (UHW).
The Labware European Customer Conference took place in the Melia Hotel, Sitges, Spain from the 2nd to 6th of June 2014. The conference allows customers to network with other customers, Labware LIMS Consultants and conference presenters. Excellent relevant presentation and workshop facilities are integral part of the four day programme. Approximately 370 delegates from all over Europe, Asia and the Middle East attended the conference. Delegates have an opportunity to attend the workshop based training sessions. These are expertly organised and allowed customers to re-familiarise with existing technology and also gave Labware the opportunity to showcase new developments.
The presentations were all based on version 6. The aim of attending this conference was to see the first prototype of Labware 7 software, to network with other Labware users from all over Europe and to meet with Labware consultants that had previously carried out development work in University Hospital Waterford.
The structure of the conference is based around the concept of presentations by users and LIMS developers augmented by workshop based training sessions. The conference opened with a short global business overview given by Vance Kershner, the Labware President. The head of research and development at Labware, Merle Overman introduced Labware 7 and presented a gap analysis between version 6 and Labware 7. It is currently in beta mode and is undergoing intensive testing. This version uses App like icons and looks very much like modern smart phones and uses web based technology. A delegation from Scottish Water introduced the concept of Integrated Mobile Laboratory Template Technology (iMLT) for offline data capture using iPhone I iPads. All aspects of the iMLT were demonstrated from sending samples to the iPhone from WebLIMS, sample scanning, result entry, sample tracking, to syncing data back into LIMS. Over the four days there were some very relevant presentations of interest to the OFML group. One of particular interest to University Hospital Waterford was the new archiving module, which facilitates the archiving and retrieving of sample and result data.
The format of the conference allows the company to inform their European users of new developments and provide practical training as part of the conference fee. A synopsis of all the presentations is available on the Labware website (www.labware.com) and Labware will facilitate any user that requires additional information.
Attendance at the conference exposes OFML delegates to new product developments which may encourage them to review how they currently use the system. For example the introduction of Labware 7 will facilitate the introduction of hand held devices by the Environmental Health Service. If the Environmental Health Service were to implement this it would definitely benefit food safety and produce efficiencies throughout the whole service.
The continued support from safefood is essential to allow OFML delegates attend this conference.
I would like to thank safefood for the funding that allowed me attend the Labware Customer Education Conference in 2014 and to the UHW for allowing me the time off to attend.
Find out more about the safefood Training & Mobility Programme
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