Jacksonville Electric Authority Laboratory Services
Customer profile
The challenge
Located in Jacksonville, Florida, Jacksonville Electric Authority (JEA) Laboratory Services provides planning, engineering, and testing services for potable water, wastewater treatment, and electric services to nearly half a million Jacksonville residents. JEA Laboratory Services needed a new laboratory information management system (LIMS) robust enough to support a quality management system in order to achieve and maintain NELAP accreditation granted by The NELAC Institute (TNI).
The outcomes
JEA is one of Clinisys’ earliest environmental laboratory clients. Its laboratory operates microbiology, organics, wet chem, and metals departments, as well as a separate fuels lab. Averaging approximately 120,000 tests on 50,000 samples per year, all departments operate within the laboratory information management system (LIMS), providing JEA with a single lab informatics solution across its operations.
Customer Profile
- Jacksonville Electric Authority (JEA) is located in Jacksonville, Florida, where the agency proudly serves an estimated 488,000 electric, 352,000 water, and 271,000 sewer customers.
- JEA was created by the City of Jacksonville to serve residents in the city and surrounding communities to ensure the electric, water, and sewer demands of customers are met, both today and for generations to come. JEA’s goal is to provide reliable services at the best value to customers while protecting the area’s precious natural resources.
- Today, JEA Laboratory Services is a NELAP-accredited municipal utilities testing laboratory with approximately 30 employees organized into drinking water, wastewater, electric operations, planning, and engineering groups. On average, the lab performs 120,000 tests on approximately 50,000 samples each year.
The LIMS
- JEA first implemented HORIZON LIMS version 8 back in 2003. JEA selected HORIZON LIMS to replace the existing LIMS that was not capable of handling the quality assurance (QA) requirements of NELAP accreditation and other requisites.
- Of the 50,000 samples JEA Laboratory Services tests each year, approximately 95% are for internal analysis and 5% are for clients.
- Reports from HORIZON LIMS are configured to meet JEA’s internal and State of Florida requirements.
The challenge
Florida was among the first US states to adopt The NELAC Institute (TNI) NELAP accreditation standards, requiring laboratories operating in Florida to maintain accurate, searchable records and to comply with strict quality assurance protocols. Full traceability was a real challenge for many LIMS software providers in the market at that time. JEA needed a new LIMS capable of meeting these new state requirements and one that the agency could count on to keep current with changing requirements in the future. This LIMS change in the early 2000s was the last the JEA team wanted to make.
The solution
HORIZON LIMS enabled JEA to attain and maintain TNI certification for two decades. HORIZON LIMS has also greatly assisted JEA with reporting via the Automated Data Processing Tool (ADaPT) to the Florida Department of Environmental Protection’s Division of Waste Management (DWM). Twenty years on, JEA is actively updating and using HORIZON LIMS, now called Clinisys Environmental LaboratoryTM.
Outcomes
Using Clinisys HORIZON LIMS solution, now Clinisys Environmental Laboratory, as the single LIMS across all of its planning, testing, and engineering departments, Jacksonville Electric Authority (JEA) is able to provide Jacksonville residents with safe, reliable water, sewer, and electric services. One of Clinisys’ earliest environmental laboratory clients, JEA has successfully used HORIZON LIMS to comply with State of Florida regulations for utility providers and to maintain independent NELAP accreditation from The NELAC Institute (TNI).
