Pasadena Water & Power Wants New Computerized Management System for Its Water Quality Laboratory

Pasadena Water and Power has recommended approval of a contract for the improvement of its water testing laboratory that would eliminate much of the manual sample log-in, tracking and reporting operations, and streamline operations, increase efficiency, and minimize paper records, and Monday the City Council will weigh the request.

PWP maintains the lab in order to comply with federal and state Safe Drinking Water Act regulations.

The department has recommended a contract with Accelerated Technology Laboratories, Inc. (ATL) that will provide a software solution for a centralized system to assist the PWP laboratory with sample and data management and generating regulatory reports.

With the proposed contract, PWP wants to install a hosted, web-based Laboratory Information Management System (LIMS) where the hardware will be entirely off-site and owned by the LIMS software provider.

The Pasadena City Council will deliberate on the recommendation on Monday, May 24.

A PWP Agenda Report for the City Council showed the contract will cost the City $127,815, which includes the base contract amount of $116,195 and a contingency of $11,620.

The five-year term of the contract will include components in the software to full automate sample tracking and scheduling, enhanced data entry integration from instruments, the ability to better track quality control and quality assurance laboratory data metrics, the capacity to automate regulatory data reporting, historical data migration, report development, end-user training, and software hosting and support.Accelerated Technology Laboratories, Inc. was one of three companies that submitted bids in response to a Request for Proposals published in January, the PWP report said.

More than 20 local businesses that provide laboratory supplies or services were notified and invited to respond to the RFP, but none of them pursued submission of a for the LIMS project, PWP said.