<HTML>First of all, thank you Fred and Bill for putting toge= ther this Guideline. This document will go a long way towards helping univer= sities cope with the piano maintenance problem. In reviewing this plan, there is one thing that I keep looking for. Perhaps = it's in there, but I can't find it. What I am looking for is perhaps the sam= e thing university administrators might be looking for, and that is a cost v= s longevity ratio. What I mean is, if a university spends x number of dollars on inventory, and= spends x number of dollars on a technician to maintain this inventory, how = long can the inventory be expected to last? And what would happen to the inv= entory if the university spends less on maintenance? How much sooner will th= e inventory need to be replaced? The workload formula tells an administrator how many technicians are needed = for the number of pianos the school has. But let's say a school needs 2.5 te= chnicians for its inventory. What will the effect be on that inventory if on= ly 1 full time technician is hired? How much more will it cost them in the l= ong run? I realize this might not be something that can be predicted, but maybe we ca= n give it a shot. The other problem we might run into is a disturbing piece = of information I learned last year. Unfortunately, what I found out is that = even within the music department, much less the university in general, most = professors, and even the chair of the department, don't care what happens 20= or 40 years from now. Most only care about what happens next year. Will the= y have enough money for their pet project, or scholarships, and will they ge= t the raise they were promised? Most of them would rather spend $10,000 now = on scholarships for next year's students, to justify their teaching schedule= , than $10,000 for parts for the pianos so they will last another 20 years. = So I realize that providing the information I am looking for might not do an= y good, but I think this is the kind of information a school would need to a= dequately protect their inventory.  Wim </HTML>