ChemWare's 20th anniversary marks the introduction of HORIZON v10: 100% web-enabled, fully integrated LIMS, SDMS and BI.

Projects | Technology | Product Support

Projects

Major LIMS Projects for Water Reclamation and Sanitation Facilities
HORIZON has been selected to upgrade the laboratory automation capabilities at several major water reclamation and sanitation facilities in California, Florida and Nevada. These facilities are all rolling out the advanced field data collection module made available with the HORIZON v9.0 release, along with the advanced HORIZON Data Management (SDMS) technologies for electronic record keeping and report automation.

Los Angeles County Sanitation District
One of the largest county sanitation districts in California, the LACSD, moved into production on HORIZON in November, 2009. This 10-site laboratory operation supports a confederation of independent special districts serving about 5.1 million people. The districts’ service area covers approximately 800 square miles encompassing 78 cities and unincorporated territory within the county. The LIMS connects the ten water reclamation plant laboratories and one ocean discharge facility, along with users at twelve sanitary landfills and related refuse processing facilities.

South Florida Water Management District
SFWMD operates and maintains approximately 1,800 miles of canals and levees, 25 major pumping stations, and about 200 larger and 2,000 smaller water control structures. The District is one of five water management districts in Florida – a state recognized as having one of the biggest water quality challenges anywhere in the world. SFWMD moved into full production on HORIZON in August, within the six month implementation goal.

Clark County Water Reclamation District
The CCWRD Wastewater Laboratory provides analytical support to the largest treatment plants in Nevada. CCWRD, with a collection system comprising 2,700 miles of pipeline, services unincorporated portions of Clark County and surrounding areas around Las Vegas, NV. CCWRD maintains a state-of-the-art laboratory that provides a range of testing services to support the analytical needs of the wastewater plants.

Technology

Web Reporting with Actuate®
HORIZON Report Manager/Actuate is the Web-based information delivery platform that satisfies the requirements of HORIZON data consumers for real-time reporting in a secure, timely and cost-effective manner. HRM/Actuate is readily scalable and can accommodate labs of all sizes. Unlike Crystal Reports® and most other popular report writers, Actuate provides a logic-driven, VB®-like (Actuate's version of VB) programmatic tool for rapid development and deployment of reports. Actuate allows the LIMS Administrator to create and modify browser-based management "dashboards" for end-users to conveniently select, filter, sort and manage output format. The application provides native Oracle Connectivity for unparalleled speed and interactivity with HORIZON, and supports high-volume reporting and complex reports comprised of thousands of pages. Reports can be generated from a variety of different sources and locations, and delivered in an efficient, user-controllable format (including XML, PDF, Access® Snapshot, RTF, CSV, XLS, SQT/Brio® and many others). Since Actuate supports both Microsoft Access and Brio output formats, users on these reporting technologies can easily upgrade to Actuate. HRM/Actuate includes a library of report templates applicable to HORIZON's user communities.

Life Without Paper
Is it really possible? Can we survive without paper? There are a lot of claims being made for systems with "knowledge management," "document management" and "scientific data management" capabilities — but the relationship between the knowledge/documents/data and the LIMS itself is a fuzzy one. HORIZON Data Management solves this problem, and more. With the advent of the NuGenesis® Scientific Data Management System™ and its patented print-to-database technology, anyone can capture instrument data and other laboratory records in a database. The trick now is finding them. While the records are indexed and catalogued in the database, without a truly integrated solution, there are no links between the stored records (or their metadata) and the LIMS objects of interest to the HORIZON user. This is where the knowledge comes in — a feature we call HORIZON PowerGrid™. The PowerGrid provides the interface — and the connection — between the SDMS and HORIZON databases (both of which are Oracle). The HORIZON user queries all the records meeting certain filter criteria, referencing samples, workorders, standards, calibrations, QC, chains of custody or various other entities in LIMS.

But we've gone even a step further. We figured out how to instantly retrieve these records in a particular user-configurable sort order. Now the user need only click a button and send the records to a reporting template in an external application, such as Word® or Actuate, where the report is automatically collated and paginated. The final report can then be printed back into the HDM database, where authorized users (including your customers) can retrieve it exactly as it would have appeared on the printed copy — except without the paper. If this just seems like a "nice-to-have" feature, have your accountant churn out some numbers relating to the cost of labor, supplies, storage, disposal, etc. in continuing to operate a laboratory drowning itself in paper.

Product Support

HORIZON Version 10: 100% Web-Enabled - Released Sept. 14, 2007
ChemWare has averaged one major upgrade every 18 months since 2002, and never obsolesced a core LIMS technology. HORIZON v10 marks a major change from a client/server to a thin client architecture, and includes a new Rules Engine interface, the new Data Layer technology for simplified data mining and reporting, additional multi-site network laboratory features, and numerous Web Portal enhancements.

Learn more about the v10 architecture (Users)

HORIZON v10 Data Migration Assistance White Paper (Users)

Download the LIMSpecSheet for additional details. (Visitors and Users)

Online HORIZON User Forum
The HORIZON User Forum is an online community of users interested in sharing ideas, solutions, and experiences relating to the installation, configuration, and maintenance of HORIZON LIMS. While the Forum/bulletin board is monitored by ChemWare Technical Support, please continue to submit support issues through support@chemware.com.

This service is available as part of the Standard Software Maintenance Agreement, but is not intended to replace the Help Desk, training, documentation, or other ChemWare-provided support resources. The HORIZON User Forum also provides a knowledge base of information about HORIZON, organized by key functions and modules. Scroll through topics such as Reports, QA, Printing, and Financials and read posts from other HORIZON users. Contribute your own experiences and find new ways to improve your lab's operation.