8. Data processing and control systems

Information technology is an essential part of any chromatography-mass spectrometry system. It has benefited from the enormous progress made in recent years in terms of information processing speed, increased storage capacity and a general reduction in acquisition costs.

The role of IT is to control the operation of the various sub-assemblies, to acquire and format analytical information, to store external databases enabling the results obtained to be compared and interpreted, and to provide a final analysis report ready for archiving (figures 1 and