Research Shop Reopening Plan

Message from John and Salomon (Research Shop), sent 6/3/2020:

Hello all,
As you are aware, efforts are being made to open up the Core facilities. This includes the Research Shop and its Student Shop, Design & Engineering Shop, and Professional Shop components. For a 1 to 2 week startup period, we will primarily be preparing the Research Shop for safe operation, following the Northwestern Research guidelines for reactivating research. We will inform you when the Shop is ready for increased operation.

Student Shop
• In compliance with the new physical distancing guidelines, we will initially only allow vetted/trained users of the student shop. No new training will be offered until further notice but we will resume as soon as possible.
• Additionally, we are working on the changes that must take place to get the Student Shop operational, so we will have our doors closed, and will deactivate any off-hour access that was granted to non-staff persons.
• Only persons with essential status will have access to the Student Shop, and that access will once again be granted after a brief in-person orientation of the Covid19 guidelines. Email Salomon to arrange for that orientation. salomon.rodriguez@northwestern.edu

Design & Engineering Shop
• All Design and Engineering work is continuing but will be impacted by the startup activities. New NUcore orders will continue to be accepted. This will be a limited process for 1 to 2 weeks but work will continue.
• Meetings to discuss design and engineering jobs via Zoom can be arranged by emailing John. john.bussan@northwestern.edu

Professional Shop
• Jobs that are currently in the queue will be completed and new jobs can be submitted through NUcore.
• The Professional Shop has been impacted by the furloughs but will return to operation in 1 to 2 weeks at reduced capacity. We will resume more extensive in-house operations as soon as possible.
• We are utilizing local machine shops to complete jobs and to start new jobs submitted through NUcore.
• Meetings to discuss jobs via Zoom can be arranged by emailing John during this period. Zoom meetings have been used throughout the shutdown and have been effective. john.bussan@northwestern.edu

These are challenging times and we appreciate your cooperation while we implement new procedures. We appreciate your use of the Research Shop.
John and Salomon