[labnetwork] Perspectives on equipment management software

[Sandrine Martin]

Hello Adam,

We are in a very similar situation at the University of Michigan. Following
some discussions at last year's UGIM, we have also looked at some of these
(iLab is already used here at the medical school, FOM is implemented in the
electron microscopy/characterization facility). We have also looked at
Stratocore PPMS.

Several universities are also pushing for compliance issues to be
considered.  We have not yet made our decision but here are some of the key
points that we are considering:

1- Scheduler and equipment interlocks

2- Administration/configuration
- role management (including tool-specific)
- web/mobile compatibility
- cost model configuration (room + tool charges, consumables charged with
certain tools)
- support of processing services

3- Documentation (tool manuals, safety/lab training)

4- Communication
- to users/staff/PIs/admins (opt in, opt out, preferences)
- tool status and ticket system for request tracking
- direct communication between users (notification of tool down after hours
for instance)

5- Budget and financial tracking
- placing external orders by staff (with electronic management approval)
- expenses assigned to specific tools / lab budget categories
- labor hours assigned to specific tools / lab budget categories
- revenue tracking per tool

6- Reporting
- tool utilization
- revenue, expenses by category/user groups/tools
- for staff, admin, users, PIs

 7- Support
- ongoing operation support
- long term reliability (code development/ database structure for instance)

9- External add-ons / interfaces with facility-specific applications


Good luck!!
Sandrine


On Tue, Apr 11, 2017 at 16:48 Stieg, Adam <stieg at cnsi.ucla.edu> wrote:

Hi All,



We are in the process of reviewing our approach to managing reservations,
access, billing, etc. for equipment throughout the CNSI at UCLA. To date,
we have relied on a system developed in-house that is no longer viable.
There is a significant push amongst the shared resources on campus toward
iLabs. We have also begun looking into FOM (fomnetworks.com) as an
alternative option. I know this may not be the best venue for a dialogue on
the strengths/weaknesses of these specific solutions (or any other for that
matter), but if any of you are willing to share your perspectives or
experiences working with either of these vendors it would be greatly
appreciated.



All the best,

Adam






Adam Z. Stieg Ph.D.

Associate Director, California NanoSystems Institute at UCLA

Director, Nano and Pico Characterization Laboratory

Technical Director, Integrated Systems Nanofabrication Cleanroom

(p) 310.206.2902

(e) stieg at cnsi.ucla.edu






_______________________________________________
labnetwork mailing list
labnetwork at mtl.mit.edu
https://www-mtl.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo.cgi/labnetwork

-- 

Sandrine Martin, Ph.D.

University of Michigan

LNF Managing Director

1246D EECS, 1301 Beal Ave

Ann Arbor, MI 48109

Cell 734-277-2365

Fax 734-647-1781

www.LNF.umich.edu <http://www.lnf.umich.edu/>

@LurieNanofab
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://mtl.mit.edu/pipermail/labnetwork/attachments/20170412/ce9f1a60/attachment.html>