[labnetwork] Equipment reservation efficiencies

[Chang, Long]

Hi Vito,

We began investigating this issue in 10/2016. We use a commercial scheduling system, Booked Scheduler, that generates a report for created and deleted reservations. After analyzing the cancellation rates for each tool and each user, it was quite clear that it was a user behavior problem. In December, we made an announcement describing average cancellation rates, specified that we are aware of 9 abusers, and we're considering fines for canceled time. In March, we made a similar announcement specifying 3 remaining abusers. The data at this time showed a downward trend in cancellation rates for all the abusers except one. In May, I contacted the one remaining abuser with a plot of his cancellation rate. Today, a past abuser is returning to old habits.

90% of our students have cancellation rates below 20%. We are addressing abusers individually to avoid any changes to our reservation policy. The google spreadsheet we made to automate the analysis makes identifying abusers effortless. Then checking their cancellation trends helps us decide what we want to do. This is a very slow experiment, but it feels promising. Perhaps by disciplining the few abusers, we can avoid the overhead/waste associated with charging for cancelled time or fines.

Best,
Long
On Jul 17, 2017, at 9:36 AM, Brent Gila <bgila at ufl.edu<mailto:bgila at ufl.edu>> wrote:

Hello Vito,

Our tracking system was developed in-house and it stores the reservations and actual use in a database.  From this we run reports and can compare all aspects of the tool reservation (even when it was made or canceled) and the actual tool use.  We then look for large discrepancies between the two and address these as needed.  I am not familiar with other systems (either turn-key or home made) but our has worked very well for us.

We find that with some open discussion with the user groups we can reel in the ones that make a 10hr reservation for 1hr of use.  There needs to be wiggle room for process issues and it is very hard to predict exact times, we have a 15 minute window that is allowable on both ends of the reservation to help out with this and take uncommon circumstances into consideration when needed.  The more open we are on these kinds of issues and the more we communicate effectively with the user groups, the less of an issue this has become.

Best Regards,
Brent

--
Brent P. Gila, PhD.
Director, Nanoscale Research Facility
1041 Center Drive
University of Florida
Gainesville, Florida 32611
Tel:352-273-2245<tel:352-273-2245>
Fax:352-846-2877
email:bgila at ufl.edu<mailto:email:bgila at ufl.edu>



On 7/14/2017 4:23 PM, Vito Logiudice wrote:
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<https://fab.qnc.uwaterloo.ca/>




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