[labnetwork] Benchmarking Survey

[John Shott]

Thomas:

I certainly agree with Dennis' cautions about trying to get a good 
apples-apples comparison and I recall how hard he and his team worked to 
do his UGIM benchmarking study of a few years ago. However, I think that 
one of the most important questions on your list is the one titled 
"subsidy".  I believe that virtually all of us get some form of subsidy 
from our institutions.  As the same time, I believe that a number of us 
are frequently under pressure to reduce that subsidy based on what I 
believe to be a common misconception that a number of other labs 
breakeven with little-to-no subsidy.

I certainly believe that one of the benefits of such a survey would be 
to get a better understanding of the range and magnitude of subsidy that 
various labs receive.  In particular, my belief is that smaller labs 
require a more significant subsidy, percentage-wise, in order to make 
ends meet ... but that's only a hunch and not based on real data.  
Capturing good information about subsidies is made harder, I believe, by 
the fact that many subsidies are not in the form of a "direct payment" 
in the way that user fees are, but often take the form of things that 
ultimately show up on someone else's expenditure statement and, as a 
result, are more easily overlooked.

All that aside, I'd be happy to help in any way that I can.

Have a good weekend,

John

On 7/25/2014 11:28 AM, Dennis Grimard wrote:
> Thomas:
>
> I will be happy to participate ...
>
> However, I would caution you that the questions must be vetted 
> properly.  For example if you ask for the staff size ... there are 
> many other questions that must be asked to assure that you are not 
> comparing apples to oranges.  For example, if the Lab is "mostly" a 
> clean room with the "typical" tool set for MEMS, photonics, NEMS, etc 
> then what if one of the respondents has a combination of these tools 
> and metrology tools in addition?.  Comparing those two labs will give 
> you completely wrong answers.  What about the size of the lab from 
> hours used, to tools, to type of tools, to footprint, to number of 
> faculty, to the size of the graduate program?
>
> Also, the fidelity of the data must be protected.  What if you have 
> someone causally "guessing" while another is fanatical about their data?
>
> I think that if the data are not "interrogated" by such things as 
> follow-up phone calls or person to person visits ... you will have a 
> bit of a problem selling that the foundation of the data are sound.
>
> Anyway, good luck ...
>
>
> On Fri, Jul 25, 2014 at 10:04 AM, Ferraguto, Thomas 
> <Thomas_Ferraguto at uml.edu <mailto:Thomas_Ferraguto at uml.edu>> wrote:
>
>     I am putting  together a "Survey Monkey" anonymous Benchmarking
>     Survey for our labs
>
>     What 10 questions would  you like addressed
>
>     Examples...
>
>     Lab Size (square footage)
>
>     Staff Size
>
>     Average Staff Salary
>
>     Director Salary
>
>     Percentage of industrial users by account
>
>     Percentage of industrial user revenue
>
>     Total  Annual Revenue
>
>     University Subsidy
>
>     $ spent on Service contracts
>
>     Thomas S. Ferraguto
>
>     Saab ETIC Nanofabrication Laboratory Director
>
>     University of Massachusetts Lowell
>
>     1 University Avenue
>
>     Lowell MA 01854-5120
>
>     978-934-1809 <tel:978-934-1809> land
>
>     617-755-0910 <tel:617-755-0910> mobile
>
>     978-934-1014 <tel:978-934-1014> fax
>
>
>     _______________________________________________
>     labnetwork mailing list
>     labnetwork at mtl.mit.edu <mailto:labnetwork at mtl.mit.edu>
>     https://www-mtl.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo.cgi/labnetwork
>
>
>
>
> -- 
> Dennis S Grimard, Ph.D
> Managing Director, Lurie Nanofabrication Facility
>
> University of Michigan
> 1246D EECS Building
> 1301 Beal Avenue
> Ann Arbor, MI 48109-2122
> (734) 368-7172 (Cell)
> (734) 647-1781 (Fax)
> http://www.lnf.umich.edu
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> labnetwork mailing list
> labnetwork at mtl.mit.edu
> https://www-mtl.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo.cgi/labnetwork

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://mtl.mit.edu/pipermail/labnetwork/attachments/20140725/bc052e6e/attachment.html>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: image/png
Size: 57965 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <https://mtl.mit.edu/pipermail/labnetwork/attachments/20140725/bc052e6e/attachment.png>