Capital Equipment Breakage Liability Several years ago we published a description of a student laboratory logistics system1 wherein one set of capital equipment served as many as twenty students per week. The system has advantages in terms of space utilization and inventory maintenance, and disadvantages regarding housekeeping and cast accounting (breakage liability). This note concerns hreakage liability, the most frequently raised question in private communication by those considering adopting the system. In the station system, extra items of equipment tend to pile up a t various laboratory sites. Station drawers may contain several units of articles poorly recognized by students such as 1-ml volumetric flasks and protected platinum wires. Carelessness also accounts for extra measuring devices such as 10-ml graduates gathering around solution dispensing areas. The laboratory staff generally gathers up mare equipment a t the end of a week than i t sets out a t the beginning. There is thus a difference between gross outflow and net outflow from the stockroom. The estimates made here are for gross outflow of capital equipment during the Summer and Fall Sessions, 1972. No breakage charges were leveled against the 2,500 students involved. The largest group of students (80%) were enrolled in that course which included typical first year experiments.2 Because only 20% of the students were enrolled in the sequential lab course invalvine: .qualitative analysis, the study period selected tends to overestimate what the actual annual rate would have been. In estimating the actual cast per student Laboratory experience, we used current catalog list prices (unit or shelfpack) for the gross outflou. On this basis, the cost was $0.0837 per student laboratory experience, or just over $1.00 per student per course. The cast of manning the stockroom with one student paid at minimum wage rates during peak efficiency periods (i.e., largest number of students in lab) was $0.03 per student laboratory experience. Estimates of the cost of writing and processing one hill (IBM, Xerox, etc.) are so large as to make collection of $1.W seem injudicious. Finally, no experienced laboratory director would ever pay actual catalog list prices. In Texas, as in many other states, item costs are competitively negotiated by contract. Our recommendation is therefore a clear one: treat capital equipment breakage liability as part of consumables expense! If this information proves insufficient in convincing your school's administration of the economic wisdom of this accounting recommendation, we shall be happy t o provide a detailed list of the actual items in gross outflow. ~
Work done a t Texas A&M University Brooks, D. W., J. CHEM. EDUC., 47,62 (1970). 2Brooks, D. W., J. CHEM. EDUC., 50,218 (1973) University of Nebraska Lincoln, 68508
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/ Journal of Chemical Education
David W. Brooks
