The criteria that matter in a mining laboratory
Most LIMS comparisons are written for laboratories in general. Mining laboratories are not laboratories in general: they run fire assay, they process thousands of samples a day, and half their instruments speak RS-232. Weigh candidates against this table:
| Capability | Why it matters | Importance |
|---|---|---|
| Fire assay workflows | Sample identity must survive weighing, fusion, cupellation and the instrument finish — at production rates. | Critical |
| High sample throughput | Grade control and exploration campaigns run to thousands of samples per day; the LIMS must not become the bottleneck. | Critical |
| Direct instrument integration | Every manual transcription between balance, spectrometer and LIMS is a data-integrity risk. Check serial (RS-232) and file-based capture against your actual bench. | Critical |
| Flexible worksheets | The electronic worksheet is where fire assay and multi-element runs actually live — templates, QA/QC insertion, position mapping. | Critical |
| Mining QA/QC | CRMs, blanks, duplicates, control charts and sign-off blocking must be native behavior, not a customization project. | Critical |
| On-premise / remote-site operation | Mine-site labs often sit behind satellite links. Thin-client access and on-premise deployment keep the lab running. | Often important |
| Legacy instrument support | Older balances and analysers still communicate over RS-232 or write plain CSV/TXT files. They are not going away; the LIMS has to meet them where they are. | Important |
| Audit trail & result locking | ISO 17025 and NI 43-101 reviews ask who changed what, when, and what the value was before. | Important |
The candidates you will meet
A mining laboratory shortlist usually mixes two kinds of product. Generalist enterprise platforms — Thermo Scientific SampleManager, LabWare, LabVantage — are proven systems that run in many industries; their strength is breadth, and their mining fit depends on how much configuration and consulting it takes to reach a working fire assay and grade control workflow, and on who maintains that customization over the years. Specialized mining LIMS — OnLIMS among them, and mining-focused offerings from companies like Datamine — ship with the mining workflow as their core model instead of as a configuration layer.
Neither kind is automatically right. A corporate group standardizing fifty laboratories across industries has good reasons to look at a generalist platform. A mining, assay or geochemical laboratory whose daily reality is fire assay, drill core and grade control has good reasons to look at a specialist.
Questions to ask every vendor — including us
- “Here is our instrument list. What do you read today?” Ask for specifics per instrument, not a general assurance. (Our answer: 150+ instruments over serial plus 25+ configurable file parsers; send the list and we confirm each one.)
- “Show me a fire assay batch, live.” From pulp weighing to the certificate, on real screens — not slides. A vendor who cannot demo the workflow does not have the workflow.
- “What happens when a standard fails at 3SD?” The answer should be: sign-off is blocked until the deviation is resolved and justified. If QA/QC is only a report, failures ride through.
- “What runs at a remote site when the link drops?” Ask for the deployment model in plain terms: what is installed where, and what depends on the WAN.
- “Who configures it after year one?” If every new test or instrument needs vendor consulting, budget for that permanently. (In OnLIMS, tests, price lists, roles and reference tables are configured by the laboratory in OnConfig.)
Where OnLIMS fits — and where it does not
OnLIMS has been in production in mining, smelter, environmental and industrial laboratories since 1989. It is a specialist: fire assay, batch and routine job models, direct instrument capture, worksheet-centered operation and QA/QC that blocks sign-off are the core of the product, not an implementation project. Deployment is zero-install client-server on Microsoft SQL Server, with Citrix or RDS for remote sites.
And the honest boundary: if your laboratory is primarily pharmaceutical, clinical or biotech, platforms specialized in those regulated domains will serve you better than we will. We would rather tell you that in the first conversation than in the second year of a project.
Frequently asked questions
What should a mining laboratory look for in a LIMS?
Five things decide daily life in a mining lab: fire assay workflow support, sustained high sample throughput, direct integration with the instruments actually on the bench (including legacy RS-232 equipment), flexible electronic worksheets, and QA/QC that is enforced in the run. Deployment model matters too — many mine-site laboratories need on-premise operation over unreliable links.
Is a generalist enterprise LIMS a bad choice for a mining laboratory?
Not inherently — platforms like Thermo Scientific SampleManager, LabWare and LabVantage run in many industries. The practical question is how much configuration and consulting it takes to reach a working fire assay and grade control workflow, and who maintains that customization over the years. A specialized mining LIMS ships with those workflows as its core model.
When is OnLIMS not the right choice?
OnLIMS is built for mining, assay, geochemical, smelter, environmental and industrial production laboratories. If your laboratory is primarily pharmaceutical, clinical or biotech, platforms specialized in those regulated domains will serve you better.
Related: Mining laboratory LIMS · Fire assay LIMS · Instrument integration · Technical specifications