Issues

This chapter considers who cares about how smart the laboratory is, and why? It also looks at the broader business requirements and their impact on the laboratory, with an emphasis on productivity and business efficiency, integration with manufacturing and business systems, patent evidence creation, regulatory compliance, and data integrity and authenticity

This chapter considers how the smart laboratory contributes to the requirements of a knowledge eco-system, and the practical consequences of joined-up science. Knowledge management describes the processes that bring people and information together to address the acquisition, processing, storage, use, and re-use of knowledge to develop understanding and to create value

This chapter discusses what we mean by a ‘smart laboratory’ and its role in an integrated business. We also look at the development of computerised laboratory data and information management; the relationships between laboratory instruments and automation (data acquisition); laboratory informatics systems (information management); and higher-level enterprise systems and how they align with knowledge management initiatives.

Isabel Muñoz-Willery and Roberto Castelnovo, of NL42 Consulting, highlight the importance of developing a robust strategy for the adoption paperless laboratory operations

This chapter takes the theme of knowledge management beyond document handling into the analysis and mining of data. Technology by itself is not enough – laboratory staff need to understand the output from the data analysis tools – and so data analytics must be considered holistically, starting with the design of the experiment