Instrument Calibration & Maintenance System (ICMS) Overview

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Autoscribe's Instrument Calibration & Maintenance System (ICMS) is a convenient way to maintain all your records on the equipment in your laboratory and/or your company. Supplied as a separate product or as part of Matrix LIMS, it holds and reports on three classes of important information. ICMS is a useful utility in any environment and especially useful for maintaining compliance with regulatory standards.

Instrument Calibration & Maintenance System

Inventory Management

Instrument/equipment record screens include enough fields to accommodate, for example, code, descripiton, class, serial number, property number, manufacturer, model number, supplier, current location, manual location, responsible user, telephone number of user, warranty information and support contract price (with tracking of renewal dates). Component level tracking eg for HPLC system is also possible.

Lists spares and consumables with current part numbers, suppliers and costs can be added and linked to the appropriate instrument/equipment record as needed.
Instrument Calibration Frequency

Calibration Maintenance

Calibration intervals may be set by time or usage. All calibration activities can be recorded and checked against calibration limits. Out of limit results are flagged and the instrument status can be changed to "unavailable". Comments may be entered to explain results or actions.

Instrument maintenance details

Maintenance details

Scheduling of routine maintenance intervals may be managed according to manufacturer recommendations. Faults, breakdowns and non-routine operations can be recorded. Comments may be entered for each event and maintenance costs can be entered and tracked. Several standard screen views and printed reports are included such as:

  • Instrument inventory listing with calibration and maintenance schedules
  • A list of all instruments due for calibration within X days
  • A list of all instruments due for maintenance within X days
  • Overdue calibrations or maintenance
  • The entire maintenance log for any instrument
  • Non-routine maintenance logs
Instrument status

Instrument Status

Instrument status is tracked automatically eg. available, maintenance period exceeded, unavailable etc. An automatic change of status occurs when calibration/maintenance is overdue or when it is performed. Automatic reminders of scheduled events are presented.

A link with runsheet is planned to ensure that instrument status is available when it is scheduled to be used for analysis. This is preferred to checking status at result entry time.
Instrument calibration and maintenance history

Reports

A standard set of reports is usually supplied with ICMS. The following are included:

  • Instrument list - provides an instrument inventory together with calibration and maintenance schedule
  • Calibration list - list of instruments due for calibration over the next x days
  • Maintenance list - list of instruments due for a maintenance checks over the next x days
  • Overdue calibrations
  • Overdue maintenance events
  • Unavailable instruments
  • Instrument labels

Additional reports may also be requested.