[CAUT] Maintenance Forecasting

[Fred Sturm]

Hi Geoff,
	Welcome to the dilemma! A brief suggestion as to billing strategy,  
on a vendor basis: Something I do with a fair sized private school is  
a "per service" price. A service is defined as a tuning plus 20  
minutes. If it is a major pitch change, that 20 minutes gets eaten  
up. If not, the 20 minute pieces get added up to use as needed,  
either for spot repairs, or for a half or full day recondition/ 
regulation/whatever. In retrospect, I think 30 minutes or more would  
be a better proportion. But the bottom line is keeping it simple, and  
giving me some control over where to put my "extra" time. I charge my  
standard tuning price per service (i.e., the additional time is what  
amounts to a discount). But it certainly could be higher, with a  
larger "service" component.
	We have a generally agreed number of services per year, based on a  
calculation of 3 per year for piano in X use, 5 per year for Y use, 2  
per year for Z, ignore W unless something comes up. (That's where we  
started, and then it turned out that the 8 pianos the administrator  
thought they had was 12. And then a few more were acquired. So the  
number of services per year had to get pared from the ideal we  
started with). Essentially, I have a budget of $3000 to handle 15  
pianos. It's an acceptable situation for this particular case, mid/ 
high school with a strong music program. $4000 for 40 pianos at a  
college isn't. But I started at UNM taking care of 65 pianos with a  
budget of $6000 20 years ago, more fool I <G>. It was on an hourly  
basis, so I had some theoretical discretion with my time, but really  
everything got eaten up in way too little tuning. (Now I'm half time,  
and the pianos have increased to 80. A LOT better, but by no means  
ideal.)
	I was frankly more embarrassed to be associated with the university  
during my first years here, due to to low level of maintenance. It  
_is_ a dilemma, all around. There are opportunities, but there are  
plenty of down sides as well. I'd say you are on the right track with  
your initial calculations, from the point of view of being realistic  
(read: they won't just laugh you out of the room for being hopelessly  
too expensive). Best of luck.
Regards,
Fred Sturm
University of New Mexico
fssturm at unm.edu



On Feb 8, 2007, at 11:31 AM, Geoffrey Arnold wrote:

> I have already contacted some university employed technicians  
> regarding my dilemma, but I thought I would offer it up here for  
> any further insights you all might have.

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