Bev,

There is no rule of thumb and when you talk about appropriate level of staffing there are two views.  When your involved in the work the appropriate level is never enough.  When your involved in funding the work the appropriate level is always too much.  I'll give you the numbers that I've seen over the years.  Most of the analysis labs at manufacturing locations I've interacted with in Western Electric many years ago were typically staffed with about 6 people for plants that had 8000 to 15000 employees.  Several years later the analysis labs at manufacturing locations I've interacted with in Lucent Technologies were typically staffed with 2 people for plants that had 3000 to 5000 employees.  Our FMA Lab in Bell laboratories was staffed with 4 people before the telecommunications industry when through their downturn and at the low point the Lucent FMA Lab was staffed with 2 people.  

When I went to work for the Lucent spin off called Celiant the Lab had 2 people to support 250 employees.  Now that Andrew purchased Celiant the Lab has 2 people to support 4500 employees.

When I've visited CMs I seen any where from 6 to 10 lab people

What I've seen so far is a single company usually has 2 people and one that works with numerous customers typically have 6

Regards,
George

George M. Wenger (908)-546-4531 
Reliability Engineer
RF Power Amplifier Group
Andrew Corporation,  40 Technology Drive, Warren, NJ 07059
[log in to unmask]



-----Original Message-----
From: Bev Christian [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Friday, June 06, 2003 1:51 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: [TN] Technical Question about Materials Labs


Technetters,
This question is directed mainly at the "lab rats" out there.

Are there any rules of thumb that are used to determine the appropriate level of staffing a lab to support an electronics manufacturing process/plant/company?  Based on what - square footage of lab, plant, number of people in company?  Obviously it is also related to the complexity of the product(s) and $$ in the pocket of the company.   Just curious.  Any of you independent labs willing to wade in on this one?  Susan?  Terry?

regards,
Bev Christian
Research in Motion  

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