Workload-"condition"

[Fred Sturm]

Wimblees@aol.com wrote:
> 

> Fred
> 
> One of things that is confusing to me is the use of the same words to
> mean different standards. For example, for Acceptable standards,
> "Excellent" is .7, which means one tech can take of 42 pianos. And for
> "Poor" the factor is 2.5, which means one tech can take care of 150
> pianos. But under Condition, "Excellent" has a factor of 1.4, which
> means one technician can take care of 84 pianos, and "Poor," with a
> factor of .3, has one technician can taking care of 18 pianos. In one
> situation I see one technician taking care of 150 "poor" pianos, and
> in another situation I see one technician taking care of 18 "poor"
> pianos. I know the reasoning, but it is very confusing.
> 
I don't see why this is so confusing. You are going to multiply these
factors together. For instance, keeping a poor condition piano to poor
standards will get you to 40 pianos (0.3 x 2.5 x 60). Keeping an
excellent condition piano to excellent standards will get you 60 pianos
(0.7 x 1.4 x 60). Remember that I am also proposing categories for finer
quality work, as for performance pianos (see earlier posts).

> Another factor that doesn't make sense to me is the "quality" of
> pianos category. The current standrds say that a piano in excellent
> condition is worth complete rebuilding, a good piano is worth partial
> rebuilding, a fair piano is worth reconditioning, and a poor piano
> should be replaced. This is a reasoning situation, used in IQ tests.
> If excellent quality is worth rebuilding, and the next level down is
> to do something less than completely rebuilding, and so forth, then
> reasoning should say that the lowest quality should need the least
> amount of work. If amount of work required for each lower "quality" is
> less and less, then a poor quality piano should only need repairing.
> Yet, in this case, the poor quality is doing something that should be
> recommended when complete rebuilding is not an option, replacing the
> piano. There is something wrong with this logic reasoning.
> 
I agree with you 100%. I have stated this in at least two previous
posts, where I have proposed eliminating this category for the very
reasons you give. For purposes of still using the current spreadsheets
with formulas built in, this is accomplished by entering a default 1.0
for quality (that way you can see what difference it would make to the
outcome of the formula).

> The other part of that that is confusing, is that a piano "in poor
> condition" needs to be completely rebuilt, and a piano "of poor
> quality" needs to be replaced. But a piano "of excellent quality" is
> worth complete rebuilding, while a piano "in excellent condition" only
> needs regular maintenance. It's very confusing.
> 
I should note that the categories and descriptions are, for the most
part, what I have "inherited." Ie., they are from the original
Guidelines document.

> I'm sorry Fred, I know you have spent a lot of time on this, and I
> appreciate all your work and effort. But the more I look at this
> formula, the more confusing it gets. And  tweaking the numbers and
> factors isn't going to make it any easier.
> 
> Wim.
> 
> PS. I have revived, again, my formula. It uses some of the factor in
> the CAUT formula, but the numbers are related to how many hours are
> required to do the work, including time spent doing nonproductive
> things like paper work, etc. If there is a request, I'll put the new
> version on line.

	Personally, I prefer to build on the efforts of those who went before
me.
Regards,
Fred Sturm
University of New Mexico