Plant Production System for Biotech firm

Business Requirements

Advanced Technologies (Cambridge) Limited (ATC) is a biotechnology research and development company based in Cambridge specialising in crop improvement, product characterisation and toxicological evaluation.

 

ATC had been using a combination of several client applications to store and maintain data for their experiments in plant breeding. However, none of these tools were integrated and it was becoming increasingly difficult to manage and analyse plant data due to duplication and fragmentation.

 

Beacon was asked to analyse their Plant Production Process and to propose a replacement for their current fragmented toolset with an integrated system that would simplify and speed-up the entry, administration and analysis of plant experiment data.

 

"The database team at Beacon worked with our own research specialists to provide a user-friendly interface suited to our requirements. We anticipate that, when fully implemented, Beacon's product will save considerable time on data recording and information retrieval."

Richard Wedgwood, Site Manager, Advanced Technologies (Cambridge) Ltd

 

Our Solution

Working closely with ATC, Beacon designed and implemented an integrated web-based solution underpinned by a SQL Server database. This was accomplished by producing a prototype to refine the project requirements and a detailed specification which was used as a blueprint to implement the new system. The new application allows researchers to enter and edit plant data, including genealogy, for different types of experiments throughout a plant’s life-cycle.

 

The system provides powerful searching facilities to enable users to quickly find experiments using partial keywords which can also be filtered by various criteria such as name, date, user and status. Result sets for searches are returned in a tabular format and can be sorted both ascending and descending by clicking on column headers. Details for individual experiments can be viewed and edited in a separate web page by clicking on hyperlinks thereby making navigation simple and intuitive. Reports for each experiment can be generated for printing or viewing on-screen.

 

While providing a straightforward interface for the user to access to the system, underlying business logic ensures robust validation of all data before allowing the user to proceed. In addition, any changes to data are recorded in a fully traceable audit trail.

 

Technology used

  • Microsoft .NET framework
  • Microsoft ADO.NET, C#
  • Microsoft ASP.NET and AJAX
  • XHTML, Javascript & CSS
  • Microsoft SQL Server
  • Microsoft Visual Studio
  • Windows Server and IIS