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Materials Informatics Platform vs. LIMS

March 15, 2023

A laboratory information management systems (LIMS) have been an essential data management platform for carrying out research and development across a wide range of industries for a very long time. However, more advanced solutions can provide the core features of a LIMS system while also introducing the benefits of AI and ML to accelerate research and development. The Materials Informatics Platform does just that, providing features far beyond what the best LIMS software has to offer.

What Is LIMS?

LIMS is a type of laboratory data management software that helps facilitate every day operations and record-keeping. It lets laboratories keep track of their projects and experiments, consolidating data into one system for easy access and management.

This type of lab management system software is an integral component of how modern research and development work, but it also has many limitations compared to other modern solutions. It is restricted to data management, making it a useful tool but missing out on many of the new opportunities that advanced technologies have now made possible.

What Is Materials Informatics?

Materials informatics is a new development in research and development that incorporates advances in AI and ML to greatly accelerate progress. It provides benefits across every stage of research and development, handling data in a unique way that creates insights and extracts knowledge that wasn’t possible to access without this new technology.

The core focus of materials informatics is on how data is handled. Data retrieved during research and development has traditionally required significant manual handling and analysis to extract useful insights. Even the best LIMS systems can’t uncover insights from data, so that task is left to the researchers themselves.

Materials informatics finally provides a real solution for extracting insights from data through the use of AI and ML. This allows researchers to analyze data much more efficiently and effectively, maximizing the impact of their time and resources. Materials informatics elevates the level at which researchers can analyze data, uncovering valuable insights that would have otherwise remained unseen.

Why Is Materials Informatics Valuable for Research and Development?

Research and development have never been more competitive, with teams around the world gaining access to new technologies and methods at a rapid pace. In order to remain competitive, organizations must ensure that they have the latest technologies at their disposal. Materials informatics is an industry-leading technology that makes it possible to compete in a rapidly shifting landscape.

Materials informatics lets organizations identify more opportunities at multiple levels of their operations. Along with making the most of data from the lab, the sophisticated AI and ML capabilities of materials informatics lets organizations identify opportunities to improve their designs and operations overall, evaluating every stage of developing competitive products.

Relying on a LIMS system for small laboratories leaves researchers at a disadvantage. They miss important insights due to the lack of technological capability or otherwise devote excessive resources to analysis in order to find them. In any case, this leaves them at an inherent disadvantage to any organization making use of the powerful AI and ML capabilities of materials informatics.

New Approaches to Material Design

Materials informatics doesn’t just represent improvement over conventional methods. Instead, it represents a complete shift in the capabilities of research and development. It opens the door to entirely new ways of tackling unique challenges and developing materials that otherwise wouldn’t have been possible.

Without these advanced solutions, organizations must rely on conventional research and development processes. This process can often be very ineffective, resulting in many rounds of trial and error and gradual improvements, requiring numerous adjustments and reformulations to finally achieve the results they’re looking for.

Materials informatics changes the way that innovation happens in research and development settings. Progress is significantly accelerated with access to insights that can guide development. Even more impressive, the AI and ML capabilities can allow for development in unconventional ways. Teams can determine the desired properties and work backward to find the optimal material.

What Is a Materials Informatics Platform?

Materials Informatics Platform enables organizations to implement all the benefits of materials informatics in a streamlined and accessible way. This organizational platform brings together all of the key features you would need from a LIMS system and also the rapid development capabilities of AI and ML.

Implementing MaterialsZone, the materials informatics platform, into your research and development process can reduce new product time-to-market by up to 90%. The automated data harvesting, sophisticated data visualization, and unique AI and ML insights let your team achieve more with the data you have.

The platform makes exceptional team collaboration possible with built-in tools that allow team members in different roles or even at different facilities to work together seamlessly. The platform features significant customization to fine-tune its capabilities to best meet your unique needs.

The capabilities provided by the platform let your team easily manage, store, and record findings, along with providing clear and insightful visualization. The AI and ML features make new product development much faster and allow for the discovery of substitute raw materials and ingredients.

Organizations can rapidly scale their development processes to mass production with the unique edge that MaterialsZone provides, including features for manufacturing and quality control. A Materials Informatics Platform serves as a comprehensive solution for research and development.

Making the Most of Materials Informatics for Your Research and Development

The field of materials informatics is advancing rapidly, and organizations can already take advantage of it to accelerate their research and development today. The Materials Informatics Platform fulfills all the fundamental requirements and features that teams need from their LIMS system, in addition to a full range of AI and ML materials informatics features.

Research and development teams can leverage their data in the most effective way with advanced AI algorithms that uncover hidden insights faster and more thoroughly than any human researcher. Machine learning elements develop an understanding of your research and development operations over time, optimizing the way that it handles and analyzes your data to deliver even greater performance.

With MaterialsZone, teams have access to absolute cutting-edge technology for research and development. You can streamline development, uncover new insights, optimize resource use, and bring the latest materials to market faster than your competitors.