The Scientific Equipment Installation Team is a partnership between the Projects & Infrastructure Modernization and Facilities Divisions, with the research divisions, designed to effectively manage and execute scientific equipment installations that are critically important to advancing research. For installations that fall within the scientific equipment installation criteria, the team can assist with feasibility studies, an estimate to support your funding proposal, or planned equipment purchase review when those items connect to utilities or infrastructure.
The Scientific Equipment Installation Team will quickly engage appropriate resources and SMEs to partner with science teams to create work scopes, estimates, schedules, and designs, to execute and close out installation projects efficiently.
The Scientific Equipment Installation Team provides resource support to:
- Improve information collection early in the process to help clearly define a project’s scope, costs, and required resources
- Provide focused scoping, estimating, and planning support
- Reduce overall costs through clarity and defined scope
- Provide skilled management of complex, multi-craft installation projects
What is different about this team’s process?
The Scientific Equipment Installations team has:
- Improved information collection (scope definition) from the start
- A new installation request form collects more information up front
- Increased engineering review performed in early feasibility studies
- Created an abbreviated project management process, streamlined design, and integrated craft and subcontractor participation
- Created streamlined process flows for each design phase
- Provide more support to science on institutional funding
As the team implements the process they will identify and incorporate beneficial process changes in an iterative approach. Any updates to the process will be reflected on this page and in the resources.
How and when to request Scientific Equipment Installation Team support
Whether you need a feasibility study, an estimate to support your funding proposal, or are planning to purchase equipment that connects to utilities or infrastructure, reach out to the Scientific Equipment Installation team as early as possible.
- Complete the Scientific Equipment Installation Request Form
- The team will connect with you to begin a review of your needs, development of a scope of work, and to schedule a job walk.
How much time should I expect for the review?
Reviews can take several weeks, depending on the scope of the work to be performed for the installation. Ensuring that a space is suitable for a proposed modification involves many different considerations. For example, if the work involves modification to an electrical utility, a 30-day load study must be performed to ensure the utilities can support the electrical load of the new equipment. This metering and analysis is necessary to confirm that the right space has been identified for the equipment up front and to avoid the possibility of discovering a hidden surprise later in the process.
Taking the need for these early studies into account, consider the following when planning an installation request. Please allow at least:
- 3 – 4 weeks for an initial feasibility study (for scopes of work that do not include electrical utility modifications and for rough order of magnitude estimates to support funding proposals)
- 8 – 9 weeks for installations with scopes of work that do involve electrical utility modifications.
- 16+ weeks for installations that require allocation of new space or evaluations of multiple spaces. Additional time may be required for confirmation of location feasibility when multiple custom evaluations are required (e.g., electrical metering plus vibration or electromagnetic field sensitivity).
The team will make every effort to complete the review in the shortest time possible while ensuring a thorough and appropriate product.
To determine if the work you are about to request should be managed as a scientific equipment installation project, contact Ben Sandmann at BJSandmann@lbl.gov.
How the Scientific Equipment Installation Team process works
The scientific equipment installation process has five phases (Initiate, Plan, Design, Execute and Close-out). Key steps are organized within each phase to optimize the planning, review and execution, and align with stage gates for science division approvals. The team provides overhead support in the early phase(s) to better support science through increased planning, scoping and engineering reviews of existing infrastructure.
Team Members
The Scientific Equipment Installations team is a multidivisional partnership of specialized subject matter experts that provide matrixed support to create a scalable and flexible team that will assist with timely, cost-effective scientific equipment installations.
RESOURCES
Scientific Equipment Installation Request Form
Scientific Equipment Installation Process (coming soon)
Project status and reporting resources:
- A dashboard of open scientific equipment installations and status is being developed.
- Project managers provide detailed reports on the health and status of each open installation request.
