<HTML>After doing some more work on my workload calculations, I have made some more refinements. My formula shows how many of hours of work are needed to take care of a certain number of pianos, as opposed to how many pianos one technician can take of. My main focus is on how many times a piano gets tuned and serviced, and what additional work needs to be done to a piano, over and above that service. I have also included in my workload formula the non- productive time we all have to deal with, which is not covered at all in the CAUT guidelines. The formula does not take into consideration in the climatic condition, the age, the overall quality of the instrument, how much it is used, or whether it is an upright or a grand. In a sense, it also doesn't take into consideration the overall condition of the piano. It is my contention that all of these factors are dealt with automatically when calculating the amount of time spent taking care of the pianos. The formula wants to know how many times a piano is tuned, how much regular maintenance time is needed be keep that piano in acceptable condition, and what additional work needs to be done. A 25 year old upright piano in bad shape in a bad climatic that gets used 12 hours a day is going require much more work than a new piano in a teacher's studio with climate control. Yet, I think if I reason out all the factors in the CAUT formula, that the opposite will be required. Four columns: "Instrument", "Times per year", "Setting", and "Additional service". "Instruments" include pianos, harpsichords, pianofortes, organs, etc that are under a technician's care. "Times per year" is the number of times per year, on the average, an instrument is tuned during either the school or calendar year. It is presumed one hour is needed for a tuning. (The "setting" factor will reflect additional time needed for the piano, such as spot regulation, voicing, etc.). One hour is used, taking into consideration that a concert grand tuned 3 or 4 times a week probably only needs a 15 - 20 minute touch-up, while a piano that only gets tuned once or twice a year might require an hour and a half. In other words, it will all come out to an average of one hour. If, on the other had, a technician needs more time to tune a piano, it will be easy to multiply this column by a factor of 1.1, or 1.5, depending on how much actual time is needed for a tuning. Or the opposite; if a technician is particularly adept at tuning, and can average less than an hour, then the column can be multiplied by less than 1. Comments about climate control, age, etc. A 50 year old piano with a bad pin block, or in a bad climatic condition, is going to need to be tuned more often. This is automatically reflected in this column. A new piano that gets used 24/7, is going to need more tunings than a 25 year old piano that gets used twice a month for an hour.  And it certainly won't make any difference if this is an upright or a grand. "Setting" is the additional time needed for the piano. Although we can use the numbers as indicated below, these are not set numbers. They are intended as guidelines only. The setting factor automatically multiplies the tuning time by the number of the setting. If a concert grand, for example, needs constant attention, by using a setting of 2.5, the tuning time is increased to 2 and half hours. This factor can be "fine tuned" to suit the needs of a particular instrument in a particular setting. Perhaps over the course of a year, if a piano is tuned 10 times per year, and no additional time is required, a factor of 1 would be given. There should never be a factor less than 1. If a factor of .5 was given, for example, it would mean that a piano that can be neglected and tuned only once a year, fixing only what is broken, would essentially only be given a half an hour to have that work done.   Setting guidelines: 2.5 for pianos that need to be kept in top working condition, needing voicing and regulation at almost every service call. (Primarily concert or recital hall pianos). 2 for pianos that need to be kept in good condition, voiced and regulated on an on going basis. (Primarily piano faculty and practice room grand pianos used by piano majors) 1.5 for pianos that need to be kept in adequate condition, regulated on a regular basis, (primarily other faculty who use their pianos regularly, classrooms, heavily used practice room vertical pianos) 1. For pianos that do not need additional work. (Primarily pianos in, applied teaching faculty who don't use the piano a lot, other settings, etc) "Additional service" includes work that needs to be done to the piano over and above regular tuning, voicing and spot regulation. On a scale of 10 - 50, indicate how much work the piano needs to have done over and above regular tuning and repairing, with 10 being complete action regulation, and 50 being complete rebuilding, including new soundboard, etc. Again, this can number can be fine tuned to suit the particular need of a piano. This number will also change from year to year. Once a 50 year old piano has new pin block and strings, (which needs 30 hours of additional work), it won't need that again in the future. This rebuilt piano would need some extra service the first year, (perhaps a setting of 2), but after that, it would need only a tuning once a month to be maintained. At least for a couple of years, when perhaps it will need 10 hours of complete action regulation. Doing the math. Add up the "times per year", the "setting", and the "additional work" for all the pianos. Multiply the "times per year" by the "settings". Add to that the "additional work". Divide this number by the "instruments", and divide this number by the number of weeks worked. Add to that the amount of time spent every week on administrative and non-productive work. This is the number of hours a technician needs to work to maintain all the instruments, and do the additional administrative work required. There are only three columns of numbers to contend with, instead of 6. Once the numbers have been added up, there are 5 easy mathematical procedures to do to come up with a final number. This number will make sense to any administrator. 35 - 45 hours per week should be considered "full time". For numbers higher than that, you have a legitimate argument for additional help. For a number less than that, the administration can call you "part time", or even consider the work contract labor. As I mentioned in one of my earlier posts, an administrator can do the math, either by him/herself, or with the help of a piano faculty member or the piano tuner. This, I think, is probably the most important aspect of this formula, to help us with our quest to get schools the help they need. Thoughts and comments are welcome Wim </HTML>