[labnetwork] Equipment reservation efficiencies

[Vito Logiudice]

Dear Colleagues,

We have struggled for some time now with equipment reservations which tend to be much greater than equipment use times. This is especially problematic on some of our most popular tools.

For instance, records for the past 7 day period show an enable (or use) time for our popular e-beam evaporator of 86 hours while the tool was reserved for a total of 192 hours during this period. This translates into a tool reservation efficiency of 45%; this seems very poor to me.

I can appreciate that it can be difficult to estimate how much time one might need on any given tool. However, I’m inclined to think that a robust and well-maintained tool with well understood and documented processes (as is the case for this particular deposition system) should allow our membership to plan their work accurately enough so that the tool’s reservation efficiency should remain consistently above 75% or so.

If this is a parameter that you happen track for your operations, I would appreciate hearing what your typical reservation efficiency range might be for some of your most popular tools. I would also appreciate hearing your thoughts on what you might have done in the past to improve this performance parameter for these particularly popular tools.

Thank you for any insights. All feedback is welcome.

Best regards,
Vito
--
Vito Logiudice  MASc, P.Eng.
Director, 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<mailto:vito.logiudice at uwaterloo.ca>
Website: https://fab.qnc.uwaterloo.ca

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