This is the second in the series of short articles about Laboratory Information Management Systems (LIMS). This installment will focus on two issues - looking at ontologies and at business process design. The goal is to demonstrate how LIMS is really a combination of several capabilities, and that although each capability should be looked at separately, they ultimately must all work together as seamlessly as possible.

Before diving in, I would like to thank Dr. Q. C. Yu, the director of our Biomedical Imaging Facility here in Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at Penn http://www.med.upenn.edu/bmcrc/morph/?morph for his assistance, encouragement, and sponsorship of my participation in the Honolulu conference.