| dc.description.abstract | In this thesis, a laboratory information system for chemicals (LISC) has been developed. There are four main purposes in the LISC: to reduce the effort of laboratory management; to provide stronger functionalities for the laboratory information management system (LIMS); to offer quantitative information to the laboratory manager; and to accelerate the process of decision making. Unlike other laboratory management systems only designed for private purposes, the LISC is a nation-wide public management system. The LISC, based on a 3-tiers structure which includes a central server, a local server and a user client, provides a web-based service platform for users in laboratories by using its centralized chemical-product-databank (CPD). This design allows laboratory manager to retrieve product information of a chemical by scanning its barcode. Furthermore, a chemical tracking system was also presented in the LISC system. A unique item code (a 15 digits barcode) is given to every single chemical item. Managers can use this number to identify the location of the chemical and to trace the records of who, when, and how much amount of that chemical has been used.
To verify the effectiveness of the LISC, a large scale field trial, including 39 universities, has been conducted. From 28th of October, 2004 to 12th of December, 2004, more than 870 laboratories (among them, 236 labs equipped with automated LISC client) have successfully registered to 39 LISC local servers. Most schools installed and learned to operate the LISC in one or two weeks. Although not satisfied, the field trail proved the LISC is a success. However, many more functions, such as advanced searching engine, easier installation procedures, and geographic information system (GIS) should be included in the future to provide better functionalities to the users. | en_US |