CAUT

  • 1.  Piano Workload Formula Results?

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 09-30-2024 11:36
      |   view attached

    Dear Fellow Institutional Techs:

    I recently used quite a bit of worktime to complete the Workload Formula worksheet (Excel doc) to bolster my argument for more help with my workload. I was conservative in my data entry (values). The result showed .41 techs needed to maintain my inventory. I was looking for more like 1.41! Could I have done something wrong? Has anybody else had a similar experience? My department chair is asking for data to support my request for help/funding asap so I'm very discouraged that I can't use this Workload Formula result to bolster my case. 

    Thanks for any insights. I'm attaching the spreadsheet as a .pdf file..

    Norman



    ------------------------------
    Norman Vesprini RPT
    Piano Technology Program Manager
    Notre Dame IN
    (574) 631-3021
    ------------------------------

    Attachment(s)

    pdf
    Piano Workload SEPT2024.pdf   114 KB 1 version


  • 2.  RE: Piano Workload Formula Results?

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 09-30-2024 11:45
      |   view attached

    sorry here's a cleaner .pdf of the data

    Norman



    ------------------------------
    Norman Vesprini RPT
    Piano Technology Program Manager
    Notre Dame IN
    (574) 631-3021
    ------------------------------

    Attachment(s)



  • 3.  RE: Piano Workload Formula Results?

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 09-30-2024 14:11
    Hi Norman,
    The main culprits for your high workload result are Standard of Maintenance and Usage. You entered a preponderance of Fair and Minimum for Standard. It takes far less work to ignore a piano and give it just enough maintenance to get by than when you set your expectations higher. Similarly, your reported usage is quite low, mostly light to medium use for four or less hours a day.

    The result in each of those two categories is a a multiplier of 1.8 or so. The multipliers interact with one another to modify your initial choice of a 100 piano per technician workload (already a choice of lowered expectations).

    Raise your expectations, and you'll quickly find the need for more labor. If the desire is to improve the current situation, you probably want your standard to be good or better for almost all instruments, for instance. 

    Regards,
    Fred Sturm
    http://fredsturm.net
    www.artoftuning.com
    "Art is not a mirror held up to reality, but a hammer with which to shape it." Brecht






  • 4.  RE: Piano Workload Formula Results?

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 09-30-2024 14:26

    Thank you, Fred! I was probably being conservative based on what I'm currently actually able to do as opposed to where I would like things to be. I'll amend my ratings and see if I get a number that is more in line with 1.25 to 1.5 technicians (which is what I'm looking for...).

    Regardless, like many institutional technicians I am unable to meet the demands of inventory and usage!

    Yours,

    Norman



    ------------------------------
    Norman Vesprini RPT
    Piano Technology Program Manager
    Notre Dame IN
    (574) 631-3021
    ------------------------------



  • 5.  RE: Piano Workload Formula Results?

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 09-30-2024 14:50
    Fred has good advice, as always. Don't aim for what is, aim for what it should be. 

    Kathy

    Sent from my iPhone





  • 6.  RE: Piano Workload Formula Results?

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 10-01-2024 07:44

    I am in a similar conundrum. The problem is that I am so overloaded there is no time to enter the data on the workload worksheet. 

    Is there a way to populate the inventory fields so that I just need to enter the values for each piano? We have 132 instruments here.

    An additional person had to be hired to enter the data when I started here and decided to use FM. Up till then, it was all kept on index cards. 

    TIA

    Dave 



    ------------------------------
    Dave Conte, RPT

    Piano Technician in Residence
    The University of Tennessee
    College of Music
    Knoxville TN
    (817) 307-5656
    Owner: Rocky Top Piano
    ------------------------------



  • 7.  RE: Piano Workload Formula Results?

    Registered Piano Technician
    Posted 10-01-2024 11:28
    Dave,
    If you have the data in FileMaker, you can do an export of a report to Excel. Choose appropriate data for the report that will correspond to the workload spread. Or just export whatever report you already have set up that includes the data, and then copy/paste each appropriate column of data into the correct column of the workload spread.
    Regards,
    Fred Sturm
    fssturm@comcast
    "The cure for boredom is curiosity, and there is no cure for curiosity." Dorothy Parker