Customizing openBIS for Optimized Materials Science and Engineering Workflows

In today’s data-centric Materials Science and Engineering landscape, experiments routinely generate vast amounts of information—making adherence to the FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable) principles essential for efficient laboratory management. At the Institute of Physical Metallurgy and Material Physics at RWTH Aachen University, we have reimagined our research workflows by using openBIS as an integrated Laboratory Information Management System (LIMS) and Electronic Laboratory Notebook (ELN) in everyday lab work and extended its functionalities beyond what is offered out of the box.

The introduction of openBIS has been pivotal in managing the heterogeneous data generated by large-scale collaborative projects like the Collaborative Research Centre (CRC) 1394, “Structural and Chemical Atomic Complexity – from Defect Phase Diagrams to Material Properties”. This multi-disciplinary project, which is a participant project in NFDI-MatWerk, focuses on the complexity of materials at the atomic level and requires seamless management of diverse data types, including experimental and simulation results. Through rapid prototyping, metadata schemata were developed covering a wide range of sample preparation techniques, characterization methods and simulation routines.

A key component of our approach is the development of a Companion App for openBIS. This user-friendly tool streamlines laboratory operations by simplifying data management tasks and enhancing daily research activities. By leveraging the companion app, researchers can more easily register and retrieve experimental details, leading to an overall smoother and more efficient research workflows. The companion app reduces the manual effort needed to fill metadata entries by automatically extracting key-value pairs from the data itself whenever possible and helps perform complex queries using a user-friendly interface suited to the needs of a material scientist.