NetNotes
contract-paying customers, with little to no spare capacity. When odd service call comes from the customer without the service contract, it is treated as such—one-off, single-case business, which may never return. Yes, it is nice to get some extra revenue, but (already reduced) resources of engineering time and parts will be given to this call only if and when all the needs of service-contract customers are taken care of, and not a split second earlier. Te bottom line is that service organization simply cannot provide more service then what it paid for, and overall level of service users receive will always degrade in one way or another, as the service revenue decreases. Valery Ray
vray@partbeamsystech.com Fri May 13 Very well stated. Te only thing I might add is that the
customer with a service contract is guaranteed certain things, such as preventive maintenance, operation to specification, perhaps even guaranteed maximum down-time. Te one-off customer has none of this. Te service organization is contractually bound to the contract customer. Period. Yes, the one off cash is nice, but the regular customers are far more valuable in the long run. Tey oſten are happier customer, also. To start with some of the more obvious places: If the system is down because service is not readily available then A) your students and researchers are not able to do what is required/needed in a timely manner, B) you need to send your work out to another lab and pay by the hour to use their systems or, C) your customers take their work elsewhere (to a competitor) to be done on a timely basis. Even the bean counters can see some of the costs involved here, although they are likely to “overlook” at least some of them. Tere are some less obvious costs, also: A) You bought a system with 3.5 nm resolution but through many little problems (death through a thousand tiny cuts) that have accumulated over time, it will only produce 20 nm resolution. First, you may not be able to do the work that needs to be done, resulting in similar expenses to above. Second, if your response is, “I don’t need better than 20 nm resolution for my work” then a considerable amount of money was wasted in the original purchase. B) Productivity goes down because the people using the system (whether “tool operator” or “microscopist”) know it doesn’t operate properly and become discouraged. Te people with the service contract are happier because they don’t have to constantly worry about their system. Tey are confident that it will remain operating up to spec. Te people without the service contract may actually be spending as much money, if not more, but the amounts aren’t always obvious. In addition, they have to constantly worry whether or not their system is going to be able to do the work that needs to be done. Tat’s why they are less likely to be happy. Te benefits of service contracts are not entirely obvious and this shows very clearly in scientific grants. It’s not all that difficult to get someone to give a lot of money for a building that will have their name on it. It may be even easier to get someone to give money for a fancy state of the art piece of equipment that will have a bronze plaque on it. Tere are no bronze plaques adorning service contracts, hence grant money for such unseen things is more difficult to come by. Ken Converse
kenconverse@qualityimages.biz Mon May 16 Tere is a new option that is floating around the University of
Texas system. An independent company has signed a deal with UT system to save everyone 25% on their service contracts (not just EMs—a whole range of equipment, as long as it is a parts and labor contract). Tey get you to move to an “on demand” arrangement with your existing service provider. Tey pay all the bills and take the chance that you will spend less than a full price contract. Of course there is the issue with how service providers prioritize contract versus on-demand customers. Tis company will freeze the cost for 4 years
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and as part of the arrangement with UT system (with qualifying contracts and equipment) will not decline coverage. I am tempted but don’t like the idea of having less priority when I make a service call. Christopher J Gilpin
christopher.gilpin@
utsouthwestern.edu Mon May 16 Don’t do it. I dealt with a system like this back in my previous
position. Worked fine as long as we only did routine maintenance and a maybe a small changing-out-a-part repair. But the first time we did something unusual to them but perfectly normal for EM— tracing a stray EM field—the company demanded we pay the full bill. Because they don’t pay for room tests. Didn’t matter that the EMF test is routine for diagnosing imaging problems, didn’t matter that the test was a minor part of the bill, didn’t matter that . . . etc. etc. Also didn’t matter that I specifically asked them a series of “what if” questions about what they covered—like the above—and their answer was always “you’re covered.” We got back on an instrument vendor service contract and were much happier. Now what I do is keep track of time-and-materials charges for any repairs or maintenance and anytime some admin type thinks of dropping the service contract, I show them the comparison: service contract vs. time-and-materials (T&M). Te contract has always been cheaper for any year other than ones in which the instruments never needed more than routine PMs. In more than one case, as someone mentioned earlier, a single repair visit if charged as T&M would have cost >2× the annual price of a full-option service contract. Mind, CMU generally is a believer in service contracts, unlike some places I’ve been, so that helps, but it still is very useful to have the contract cost vs. T&M cost comparison handy. Philip Oshel
oshel1pe@cmich.edu Mon May 16
TEM:
large UPS systems—stray fields? I am considering installing an inverter type UPS to keep my FEG
TEM running during power outages/blips and to provide it with clean power. My options for locating the UPS and battery stack are limited. I obviously want it located as far from the microscope as possible and plan on putting it in the plant room for the microscope, adjacent to the lens/ion pump power supplies. Does anyone have any experience with, or advice on, potential interference issues between UPSs and TEM systems? Dave Mitchell
drg.mitchell@sydney.edu.au Fri May 13 Te Phase One UPS I had on my 2010F at Intel had a requirement
from JEOL that it be at least 20 feet away from the microscope. I measured 35 milligauss coming out of that thing. We kept it 50 feet from the microscope. Te new lab at ASU has the UPS located in the attic at the far end of the building, and there is extensive shielding between the UPS and the microscopes. You definitely want the UPS as far from your column as possible. John Mardinly
john.mardinly@
asu.edu Fri May 13 Te UPS attached to the FEI Polara FEG TEM at Caltech was
located in an adjacent room, ~10 m from the scope. Te Haskris coolers, air compressors, and some of the electronics were also in this room. We saw no interference from the UPS. Bill Tivol
william.f.tivol@aero.org Fri May 13
TEM:
dislocation density measurement A student studying Ni-based super-alloys asked how to measure
dislocation densities using a 2000FX TEM. I understand that grains can be tilted to certain orientations to make dislocations visible/invisible, eventually the burgers vector of the dislocations can be worked out. Does that mean at no orientation all the dislocations are visible? How do we then quantify the density of dislocations? Any advice, references,
www.microscopy-today.com • 2011 September
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