LIMS for Concentrate Terminals and Commercial Labs

OnLIMS runs in production at major mining, smelter and commercial-terminal laboratories across the Americas — Canada, the USA, Peru, Chile and Mexico — from mine-site assay labs to smelters and concentrate export terminals. A terminal laboratory has a narrower and harder job than most: receive material by truck or rail, establish what each lot contains on a dry basis, and stand behind that result when producer, buyer and umpire compare numbers.

What a terminal laboratory has to prove

Lot identity Which physical shipment, truck or production lot does this sample represent? A valid assay linked to the wrong lot is not valid commercial evidence.
Moisture What dry basis applies? Moisture converts wet mass to dry mass, so its sampling time, drying procedure and balance source matter.
Assay Which method, calibration and units produced the grade, and was the analytical batch within the laboratory’s acceptance rules?
Certificate status Is the value preliminary, approved, revised or final? Parties comparing different versions are not comparing results.

Lot identity from receipt to dispatch

Samples are registered as part of a job and labelled through BarcodeServer, so each container carries a verifiable identity from the first touch to the final certificate. Every hand-off — preparation, analysis, review — is recorded as it happens, not reconstructed later.

OnLIMS integrates with the terminal’s warehouse management system (WMS): the laboratory job is created from the inbound record itself — truck, lot and supplier lot numbers, contract, gross and net weight — instead of being typed again at the laboratory. Outbound records — shipment, lot, blend and weight in metric tonnes — are loaded the same way, so dispatch samples stay tied to the shipment they describe.

Weights and moisture without a keyboard in between

Balance readings land directly on the worksheet from Mettler Toledo, Sartorius and Ohaus balances, over RS-232 or RS-485, and moisture balances are among the supported instruments. If a weight is ever corrected, the audit trail records the old value, the new value, the user and the timestamp. The calculation engine takes formulas referencing sample, moisture, tare and gross values, so the dry-basis figure is calculated from captured weights rather than copied from a spreadsheet.

For gravimetric moisture, worksheets record tare, wet weight and dry weight per sample, with a constant-weight check before the final moisture value, and a moisture check report that flags excluded or missing determinations for corrective action.

Assays the contract depends on

Copper, lead, zinc and precious-metal grades come straight from the instrument: ICP-OES and ICP-MS, AAS, XRF, LECO carbon/sulfur and fire assay balances, among 150+ instruments integrated over serial plus 25+ file parsers. Units, detection limits and element-specific rounding are applied by configuration.

Batch QA/QC OnQC connects certified reference materials, blanks, duplicates and controls to the analytical batch, with Shewhart, X-Control, CUSUM and Thompson-Howarth charts. A 3SD failure blocks sign-off.
Replicate tolerance Replicate determinations on the same sample are checked against a tolerance table by test, unit and concentration range, flagging pairs whose difference exceeds the allowed tolerance before the result is reported.
Revision history Re-assays and corrections do not overwrite the original: the field-level audit trail keeps every previous value, so it is always clear which version a party received.

Exchange and umpire portions

Under the contract and sampling protocol, one composite may be divided into portions for the producer, the buyer, a retained reference and an umpire laboratory. Each portion the laboratory handles is registered under the same lot, with its own identity, preparation, method, QA/QC batch and approval state. When the exchanged results differ, the record supports the investigation in order: confirm the lot, then custody and sample division, then preparation and method, then batch quality, then result status — and only then apply the contract.

Results leave the laboratory as Certificates of Analysis, with formats configured per client, and as TXT, CSV or XLSX exports; custom exports are built to the client’s specification. Commercial, shipment and exchange result exports are available. Shippers, traders and other stakeholders can be given the LabData read-only portal to see published results without access to the laboratory applications.

Laboratories and inspection bodies

A terminal may host both a testing laboratory and an inspection activity. ISO/IEC 17025 protects the testing result; ISO/IEC 17020 protects the inspection decision. OnQMS carries accreditation evidence for both standards over one shared core of documents, competence, equipment and audits.

Where OnLIMS fits, and where it does not

OnLIMS supports the laboratory-controlled part of concentrate evidence. It does not define representative sampling for a shipment, replace ISO 12743 or the agreed sampling protocol, decide which elements carry commercial consequences, invent contract thresholds, deductions, splitting limits or payable-metal formulas, replace an accredited laboratory or an independent inspection body, determine maritime cargo classification, or adjudicate a dispute between producer and buyer. Its role is to keep lot identity, preparation, methods, instrument records, QA/QC decisions, approvals, revisions and certificates connected, so authorised parties can defend how each value was produced.

Frequently asked questions

Can OnLIMS handle concentrate lots rather than drill-core batches?

Yes. Samples are registered as part of a job with barcode identity, and each lot’s samples, weights, moisture and assays stay connected from receipt to the final certificate.

How does OnLIMS handle moisture and the dry basis?

Balance readings are captured directly, and worksheet formulas reference sample, moisture, tare and gross values, so the dry-basis figure is calculated from captured weights. Any correction is recorded in the field-level audit trail.

Does OnLIMS calculate settlement, splitting limits or penalties?

No. Those terms are contract-specific. OnLIMS protects the analytical inputs — lot identity, method, QA/QC, approval and certificate version — that the parties use when they apply the contract.

Can clients and traders see results without accessing the LIMS?

Yes. The LabData portal gives clients and stakeholders read-only access to published results, crosstab views and exports, without access to the laboratory applications.

Is OnLIMS used at concentrate terminals today?

Yes. OnLIMS runs in production at mining, smelter and commercial-terminal laboratories across the Americas, including concentrate export terminals.

Concentrate Terminal & Commercial Laboratory LIMS