ChemCentre Case Study

ChemCentre provides specialised chemical and forensic services, and responds to hazardous material emergencies and undertakes research to ensure a safe and prosperous WA community.

Project Description

ChemCentre had been supported by two siloed Laboratory information management system (LIMS) applications. These systems were based on legacy technologies and were unable to effectively respond to business and cyber changes.

REM Consulting was appointed to:

• Validate a cloud microservice-based architecture that would consolidate the two legacy systems and future-proof a scalable LIMS application
• Develop the new system on Microsoft’s latest .NET and Azure technologies
• Migrate historic and current data
• Ensure the application was “Cloud ready”

Challenge

An additional challenge stemmed from the discontinuation of Microsoft’s support for the technology stack which underpinned the LIMS. This increased operational risks associated with ensuring LIMS could run securely on future operating systems and hardware.

Other challenges included:

• Combining the LIMS requirements from different divisions into a single solution (OneLIMS)
• Cleansing and migrating data into the new system, ensuring it was accessible to all relevant divisions while concurrently developing the solution
• Providing operational support for legacy systems and releasing OneLIMS features within a single development team
• Delivering to limited budget and challenging timelines

Outcome

Utilising Microsoft’s latest .NET framework, microservice-based architecture and Azure Cloud technologies, REM Consulting worked with ChemCentre to modernise its software. The project delivered a OneLIMS solution that future-proofed ChemCentre’s data processing and information capabilities by providing a system that was:

• Cloud enabled
• Scalable
• Technologically current
• Aligned with industry best practices
• Capable of digital data interchange