[labnetwork] Cost of infrastructure operating and maintenance costs

[Noah Clay]

Vito,

I believe that the vast majority of university fabs recover operational costs through fee income.  This obviously varies tremendously by facility, research thrusts, geographic region, etc.  Offline, I'd be happy to share the profile of our user base and open the books for our operations at Penn.

Usually, a core group of staff salaries are covered by hard funds and others through grants or additional fee income on revolving two year appointments.  

Residual funds are reinvested in the operation or absorbed into the governing school, provost's office or similar.  Central plant facilities, as mentioned below, are typically not covered by the fab.  

Frankly, the latter would sink my ship.

Best,
Noah Clay

Quattrone Nanofabrication Facility
University of Pennsylvania 
Philadelphia, PA

Sent from my iPhone

> On Jul 7, 2015, at 12:29, Vito Logiudice <vito.logiudice at uwaterloo.ca> wrote:
> 
> Dear Colleagues,
> 
> I would like to come up with a reasonably accurate estimate of the infrastructure operating and maintenance costs associated with our 6750 sq.ft. cleanroom. If you've completed such a study in the past I would greatly appreciate hearing from you in regards to the methodology you used at the time and any references or rules of thumb that may have been useful to you. 
> 
> Using the same terminology used by our own Plant Operations group, the following are the variables I would like to include in my study.  Some of these seem vague to me personally but I suspect this is likely due to the fact that this type of analysis falls beyond my scope of experience. 
> 
> -Building 
> -Central Plant 
> -Mechanical distribution 
> -Electrical Distribution
> -Grounds
> -Electricity
> -Heat
> -Water
> 
> In addition, I would also like to hear from the community as to whether their respective administration expects their fab operating revenues to cover these particular infrastructure costs. Specifically, I’d like to know whether you are charged for these types of costs by your internal plant operations or finance groups.
> 
> Thank you very much for any insights.
> 
> Best regards,
> Vito
> --
> Vito Logiudice  P.Eng.
> Director of Operations, Quantum NanoFab
> University of Waterloo
> Lazaridis QNC 1207
> 200 University Avenue West
> Waterloo, ON           Canada N2L 3G1
> Tel.: (519) 888-4567  ext. 38703
> Email: vito.logiudice at uwaterloo.ca
> Website: https://fab.qnc.uwaterloo.ca
> 
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