Hi Willem and Others,
Please be aware that my answers below are my own views and may or
may not reflect the reasoning of the rest of the committee. The more I
study the formulas the more I appreciate the intelligence of the old
formula and the revisions Fred has introduced.
Willem Wrote:
Please explain to me the difference between a plan and a formula.
My Answer:
A workload formula seeks to provide a simple number of how many
technicians are needed for a particular inventory. It is based on
information which is as objective as possible and should work for any
institution. A workload plan creates a plan for what specific work
should be done, how long it should take, what pianos get what service
etc. Such a plan could be used to derive a workload formula.
Willem Wrote:
I don't quite understand the how a piano inventory can remain stable for
years.
My Answer:
Piano inventories are generally quite stable. Under your plan, a
technician adds up all of the work needed. In a typical university with
100 pianos, there might be 25 that need rebuilding or could be
considered as needing it. If one listed all of that under "additional
work", it would yield a need for several technicians immediately. So
considering all of the other work needed to keep the inventory going,
there could be a need of perhaps four or five technicians for that one
year. However, the following year those 25 pianos are now rebuilt and
all of the other work done, there would be nothing left for them to do.
This design would encourage universities to hire all of the techs needed
to fix everything in one year, and then lay them off, keeping just one
tuner. Eight or ten years later, they could do the same thing again.
This is typical for how they purchase pianos. Do we wish to be
temporary transient employees? I'd say not! We should be able to
build homes and put down roots with families and private businesses.
How we design the formula is critical to how it is used.
With the standard caut formula, the work needed is not really
analyzed. The inventories age, condition, etc. is. So an overall
workload number is calculated. The technician will likely take the
worst or most urgent piano and rebuild it, as this is done, another
piano deteriorates and now needs it. So the workload is steady and
ongoing and the technician is a stable employee.
Willem Wrote :
Part of the formula uses the age as a factor. That, by itself, would
change from year to year.
My answer,
Age does affect how much work is needed to maintain it, so it should be
in the formula. It also shows universities that replacing pianos with
new is one way of staying in compliance. The change in workload due to
an aging inventory gradual. It could make a sudden change when large
groups of pianos cross lines, such as when they hit sixteen years old.
The affect, considering other factors, would still not be huge on final
workload.
Willem Wrote:
Although most pianos stay in the same room, some are moved around, from
performance halls to teaching studios, to practice rooms, even within a
year. And as you said, there are changes in humidity, conditions, etc..
Don't those things then change the formula on a yearly basis? On top of
that, isn't the number of tunings, and the number of minor adjustments
to go along with them, the main effect on a change in humidity,
condition, usage?
My Answer:
Absolutely. The formula result would change upon changing any factor.
Pianos which are switched around will swap some multipliers, (usage,
humidity control, acceptable standards), so there probably is no change
there. Having humidity and use level in the formula shows how solving
some of those problems would affect workload. Most universities are so
far out of compliance that I doubt it would threaten anyone's job if
they did fix those problems. This, again gives the schools options on
how to get into compliance with the formula.
Willem Wrote:
And if you rebuild a piano, doesn't that change everything?
My Answer:
Yes it does, but not very much. Try moving one piano from poor to
excellent rating. With a hundred pianos, it won't make much difference
in workload. In a typical reality, if you rebuild a piano, probably
another just slipped down into the poor category so the resultant
workload isn't changing much if at all..
Willem Wrote:
As I pointed out, there really isn't a good way to indicate what to do
with a rebuilt 50 year old piano. And how is non-productive and
administrative time handle! d in the formula?
My Answer:
A 50 year old piano well represented. It would get a low mark on
the age factor, but be classed as excellent for condition. So it's not
likely to break strings, and shouldn't need new hammers, but at the same
time it is still 50 years old. As such, it is often plagued by other
problems that typical rebuilders missed. (stripped screws, loose
capstans, fragile finish, S&S keyslips which are screwed in, old parts,
weak legs, etc.). That is one reason that the market value of rebuilt
pianos is less than that of new. It may be that we should have separate
categories for remanufactured pianos vs rebuilt pianos. But even a
remanufactured piano is not new and tends to have some problems common
to old pianos.
Non productive and administrative time are not addressed in a
workload formula. They would be in a work plan. I don't think CAUT is
in a knowledgeable enough position to determine how much or how little
time should be spent on particular aspects to the jobs. That would
require a lot of discussion.
Willem Wrote:
My feelings are that a piano faculty member would be much more able to
use my formula than the CAUT formula. An
administrator, if he/she kept records, would know how many times a piano
gets tuned, especially in a contract situation. With only 2 columns to
deal with, it would seem my plan would be a lot easier to adjust on a
yearly basis, if it needed to be adjusted.
My Answer:
If a piano faculty member or administrator looks at how many times their
pianos have been tuned in the past and how much time was devoted and
uses that to determine the workload, it nullifies the purpose of the
formula. Universities should do what is right, not what they have been
doing, so the workload formula should not be based on that. To compile
that information is a big job for any administrator, I sort of doubt
they will really do it. If they fail to do part of our formula, they
still have the base workload numbers to look at.
Willem Wrote:
I know we are trying to get a formula ready by Convention time. But if
this is going to be used for along time to come, isn't that better take
another year, than trying to pass something that isn't completely
ready? Although the US Constitution is worthy of amending, some states
have recognized their constitutions were so bad, that they completely
rewrote them. Alabama is in the midst of a fight to get that
accomplished. The 100 year old constitution has so many amendments, it
is reportedly the longest in the world. While many of the "old
guard" want to keep it, and make more amendments, there is a growing
number of people, with the support of "newcomers," who want
to see a Constitutional Convention to write a new one.
My Answer,
Our workload formula is fairly new territory. The only examples we
have are the old formula, and the Steinway Recommendations. The Alabama
Constitution can be re written with 49 other examples to look at. Far
less dangerous, I would say. I agree with you that it is too important
to rush. I don't think we are rushing it. It does seem to have
consensus, though more input is desired. Starting over with your
formula or any other type at this point could not be reasonably
accomplished before June. There are probably always other ways to build
a formula also.
Willem Wrote:
While we seem to agree on the base workloads, there is also
disagreements with how the formulas need to be used. With my plan, there
doesn't have to be an
agreement with how often a piano needs to be tuned, nor on how long it
takes to do a tuning. The number of tuning is a matter of record in each
school. We, as a group, don't have to agree on that, any more than we
have to agree on the condition, age, etc., of the pianos in our
inventories. All a tuner has to do is put down what has been done in
the past. The amount of time it takes is also adjustable in each
situation. The number of tunings is how many tunings a piano gets in one
year. But as far as how long it takes, that is again, a matter of
individual technicians to decide. As I pointed out, the "base time" for
a tuning is one hour. If a tuner takes more than an hour, the whole
column can be adjusted to reflect how long it actually takes. A! nd I
don't think administrators are going to expect us to do 8 tunings a day,
any more than they expect a secretary to write x number of letters in a
day, or a janitor to clean the same number of rooms in the same amount
of time.
My Answer,
Herein lies perhaps the greatest deficiency in your formula. Your
formula is essentially no different than what has been practiced in the
last 100 years. The tech tells the university what to do and university
doesn't listen. Why should they listen? There exists an inherent
conflict of interest which universities are shrewd to spot. If a
contractor tells the university what they need, and they do it, the
contractor makes more money. If a staff tech tells them they need to
hire some help, and they hire someone, the staff tech has an easier
job. Your formula has no claws and no teeth.
Our formula gives a recommended workload, from a non profit group
of experts. They can see whether the tech is telling the truth. It has
real power to make a difference which is its' essential purpose. For
contractors, they can calculate the workload and come up with a number
and present that to administration. This may show that a particular
institution needs to hire 0.4 techs. That will cost much money to
create a position and because it is part time, it will be hard to fill.
They might then listen to that contractor who has been telling them they
need to double the amount of tuning they are doing. They will usually
do the cheapest thing, which is often to stay with the contractor. For
a staff person, it provides an objective number to help them get the
help they need.
Willem Wrote:
The other question I have is, have we, as a group, or individually,
asked our administrators what they want from us? Have administrators
asked us for a workload formula, or have they asked us for a workload
plan? If this has been asked of us, and if this is why we are committed
to the CAUT formula, then I can see keeping it, and working with it.
(But then why hasn't someone told me this at the very beginning.)
My Answer:
Administrators have demonstrated that they need this formula in
innumerable ways which spoke louder than words to hundreds of techs over
many years. While their pianos languished from inadequate service, we
cried out individually and were largely ignored. As a group we are able
to present them with objective numbers agreed on by experts.
A rule of thumb commonly used by administrators for the maintenance
of durable goods such as pianos is: 5% yearly should be given to
maintenance, and 5% yearly should be saved toward replacement. With
100 pianos having a million dollar replacement value, you should spend
$50K yearly on maintenance and save $50K toward replacement. This is
probably why we have so many institutions with one tech per 100 pianos,
it just sounds nice and kind of works out that way. But this isn't what
pianos actually need. We are here to educate and help bring standards
up to a reasonable level.
A workload plan is an excellent thing once the formula is
calculated. It can show how alternatives in how the time could be
spent. Since time is money, it also works when considering whether to
contract out some services, or hire employees. Our workload formula
does not dictate how the time is to be spent.
Willem Wrote:
I asked Fred to explain how the workload formula could be adjusted to
reflect the amount of time spent, and he gave a very easy explanation.
This would
indicate that there is a need to have a "time plan" that can be given to
an administrator, if one is needed. My plan does the opposite. It uses
the number of
hours per week, which can very easily be changed to workload. If 50
hours a week are needed to maintain inventory, that equates to 1.25
techs.
So my question is, if my plan is easier to use, and gives the same
results, why is there opposition to it?
My Answer,
The plan must provide an objective recommendation from a non profit
group of experts which states a particular needed level of service for a
particular school. Yours does not do this. It relies on the
individual tech telling them what they need, who has a self interest in
the result. Yours also bases the workload and what the institution has
done previously, which is pretty sorry in most cases.
In our formula a workload number is achieved by objective means.
The only two areas where there is some subjectivity is under "quality"
and "condition". Here Fred provides excellent guidelines which takes
away almost all of the subjectivity. It is true some of us might
prefer keeping old parts more than others of us, so there is some
subjectivity under "condition" We may also draw slightly different
lines dividing which pianos merit rebuilding, so this would introduce
some subjectivity into the "quality" issue. However Fred has really
done a thorough job oif minimizing subjectivity. All other areas are
totally cut and dry.
I hope this has answered all of your concerns,
Mike Jorgensen
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