<HTML>In a message dated 5/1/02 11:25:57 AM Central Daylight Time, jorge1ml@cmich.edu writes: Mike Thank you for giving me some positive feedback. I appreciate that. Comments and questions below. <BLOCKQUOTE TYPE=CITE style="BORDER-LEFT: #0000ff 2px solid; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 5px">Hi Willem                Your formula is a brilliant work plan for helping individual technicians organize and budget their time.  Contractors could use it to build a plan for bringing an institutional customer up to standards within a given time and budget.   It also allows one to organize pianos into various categories for specific service.  Such a design is very useful for viewing options.  Technicians and administrators could see how fairly work and time are being allocated.  There is much to be said for the design you have.       However, what is needed for the Guidelines is a workload formula, not so much a work plan.  The resultant workload figure should remain stable for years barring major changes in an inventory.   It should also help universities understand the importance of, and affect of , things like humidity control, usage,  age, and condition etc. on work load.   </BLOCKQUOTE> Please explain to me the difference between a plan and a formula. I don't quite understand the how a piano inventory can remain stable for years. Part of the formula uses the age as a factor. That, by itself, would change from year to year. 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?  And if you rebuild a piano, doesn't that change everything? 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 handled in the formula? The original formula begins with recommended workload, then makes adjustments.   <BLOCKQUOTE TYPE=CITE style="BORDER-LEFT: #0000ff 2px solid; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 5px">In your formula, we begin with details which only a technician can provide, then calculate the workload.     Using the old formula, it is possible to get a quick ballpark figure without as much knowledge.  Granted, it will take a technician to do a true complete analysis to get a more accurate figure.   Faculty members do have a general knowledge of age, condition, usage, etc.  I don't think they could work with yours without a technician.   </BLOCKQUOTE> This is where I have to disagree a little. 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. <BLOCKQUOTE TYPE=CITE style="BORDER-LEFT: #0000ff 2px solid; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 5px">       Amending the existing formula preserves credibility while using previous work.  It also saves time, something we don't have a lot of.  I'm glad our nation amends the same constitution instead of constantly writing new ones like unstable countries.  </BLOCKQUOTE> 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. <BLOCKQUOTE TYPE=CITE style="BORDER-LEFT: #0000ff 2px solid; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 5px">       We already have base workloads we agree on.   If we had to agree on things like how often to tune, how much time it should take etc.,  it could be a nightmare.  Administrators think differently.  If we state that tuning takes an hour, supervisors could expect eight tunings per day from us.  I would either die before the end of the week, quit,  or seriously compromise the work.    Though I like what you have done, I don't think it would work as well for the guidelines. -Mike </BLOCKQUOTE> 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. And 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. 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.) 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? Again, Mike, thanks for taking the time to explain your thoughts on this. Wim </HTML>