Re: Installation Planning
baum@merck.com
Wed, 17 Nov 1993 12:18:22 -0500 (EST)
Although my experiences are a bit dated, some of the foresight we had is
still relevant. You should make certain that any contract you have has dates
and penalty clauses in it. We (that is, Princeton Univ when I was there) used
to put into the contract that the university would pay for 2 He charges on
bringing the magnet to field (in other words, if you get stuck with a
"quenchy" magnet, the vendor pays for the helium); the contract would state
explicitly that ANY warranty for the instrument would BEGIN upon acceptance,
and acceptance was defined to mean ALL systems working up to specs [on the
same day]; the contract also stated that final payment (typically 10-20% of
the total) would not be made until all systems were meeting specs. All of this
serves as leverage with any of the vendors, and it really DOES pay off - we
had an instrument which met specs for everything, but one probe was late in
arriving, so we withheld acceptance until it arrived and was working fine -
the magnet had a fatal quench on day 364 of the warranty which had started
officially when that last probe was accepted....
That instrument is still running, 11 years later.
MB
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Dr. Mary W. Baum Phone: 908-594-6301
Merck Research Laboratories Fax: 908-594-1530
PO Box 2000, R50SW Mary_Baum@merck.com
Rahway, NJ 07065-0900
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"Sometimes you're the windshield, sometimes you're the bug" - M. Knopfler