[labnetwork] Equipment reservation efficiencies

[Shuyou Li]

Hi Vito,

The key point here is to provide an incentive for our tool users to book
time as accurate as they can, no more no less. In the FOM system, many
different charge policies can be defined, including a popular "combined"
charge policy, in which the users are charged according to the earlier
start time and latest end time, between the reservation and actual usage.
This means that if a user reserves an instrument with this charge policy
from, say, 4pm to 5pm, and uses it from 4:30 to 5:30, they will be charged
for the time between 4 and 5:30, which provides a financial incentive to
reserve accurately. According to our users' experiences, this policy is the
most widely used across our FOM customer institutions. The late
cancellation charge and no-show penalties are also critical to ensure every
user cancels their reservation if they don't need.

There are other tool-specific settings available in FOM that help with the
fair and maximized usage of particularly popular tools as well. For
instance, to minimize idle time, an option is provided to users to opt to
receive an email notification when a reservation is cancelled, or when a
user on their reservation logs off a set amount of minutes before their
reservation's end time. Other tool-specific options that the instrument
manager can set include a limit on the days a reservation can be made in
advance, the maximum time per user during this period, the option to open
new reservations day by day or hour by hour, and many more.

Thanks,
Shuyou
_________________
Shuyou Li, Ph.D.
FOM Networks, Inc.
www.fomnetworks.com
Ph: (224) 225-9168
Fax: (224) 218-2807


ᐧ

On Fri, Jul 14, 2017 at 3:23 PM, Vito Logiudice <vito.logiudice at uwaterloo.ca
> 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 <(519)%20888-4567>
> Email: vito.logiudice at uwaterloo.ca
> Website: https://fab.qnc.uwaterloo.ca
>
>
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