1. Follow-up of previous meeting and
matters arising
- MAPS guidelines : an addendum has been sent to Group Leaders
concerning this year's guidelines. As indicated Group Leaders will propose
promotions and steps for members of their group, but should also propose
zero steps when justified. These non-awarded steps will be added to the
quota of the group in the first guaranteed list and can be used by the
Group Leader concerned for deserving cases.
- Meeting DG : following the divisional meetings and before the
presentation of the Director-General last week, J.P. Delahaye addressed
a message to the Director-General to inform him of the feelings of PS
staff. He explained that his role as Division Leader is twofold, firstly
to execute decisions made by the CERN Directorate and secondly to make
sure that the DG is aware of the realities in the division, regarding
both technical and personnel matters. The Director-General has expressed
his wish to talk to the PS Management in the presence of the Director
of Accelerators and a meeting has been arranged for Friday, 12 April 2002
at 11 a.m. J.P. Delahaye encouraged Group and Project Leaders to prepare
for this important meeting, which is an opportunity to inform the DG of
the concerns of staff in the division regarding the restructuring and
the importance of communication regarding the choice and reasons in order
to keep staff motivated. Although most people realize that this restructuring
is probably necessary and useful, it is not understood why it is not being
carried out elsewhere in CERN where it is seemingly necessary.
- Accelerator Board : J.P. Delahaye attended the Accelerator Board
on 03.04.2002 which was originally planned to discuss the decision made
by the CERN Directorate to adopt the scenario of merging the present three
accelerator divisions into two, without however transferring EST into
the Accelerator Sector which would have been coherent with this scenario.
It was not possible to devote much time to this subject as an urgent request
has been made by Dr. Aymar on behalf of the ERC to the Division Leaders
of SL and LHC for more information concerning the estimated cost to completion
and the target date of April 2007 for the LHC project. Everyone responsible
for LHC project activities is being asked to define them as work packages,
as would be done for a contract with industry, stating resources in budget
and manpower, schedule time, milestones and people responsible. The whole
group of work packages are to be presented to the ERC in two weeks time.
In the future all these activities should be closely followed up using
the tools to be put in place for "Earned Value Management" (see
presentation B. Allardyce).
This procedure will also be put in place for other CERN projects (such
as PIL/LEIR, CTF3, ISOLDE Consolidation in PS) and possibly later on for
maintenance and operation. Dr. Aymar and the members of the ERC have insisted
on the necessity for CERN to change to this type of management in the
future and in particular for large projects.
Normally no CERN posts were available this year, but as more funds have
been left over from last year than expected, it is now possible to allocate
20 posts to the whole of CERN, including 10 for the accelerator sector.
These 10 posts should be used for recruiting technicians in career paths
C and D and for correcting the situation of "missing posts"
where appropriate. Each division (LHC, PS, SL) has been asked to submit
5 proposals, and 10 out of the 15 will be decided upon at Sector level.
J. Boillot will contact Group Leaders to update the list of post requirements
for technicians in the division.
- DPO/Editorial Board : following B. Allardyce's decision to leave
CERN early 2003, J. Boillot has accepted to take over the responsibility
of DPO as from 15 June 2002 and K. Schindl as Chairman of the Editorial
Board from 1.7.2002.
- CTF3 : G. Geschonke announced that G. Rossat will temporarily
act as TSO for Zone 6 (Lepton Machines) due to the absence on sick leave
of G. McMonagle. Note that, contrary to CTF2, there will be no GLIMOS
(Group Leader in Matters of Safety) for CTF3.
- Beam losses TT2 : G. Daems spoke about a draft report received
from TIS regarding serious radiation levels in nTOF caused by losses in
the TT2 beam. TIS would appreciate checking of figures and hypotheses
by competent people in PS. It was decided by the PSMB that this report
should be verified by C.E. Hill (RSO) and D. Manglunki ("Mr. Beam
Loss"), who should report to G. Daems (DSO).
- PIL/LEIR : C. Wyss will send invitations to people outside the
division to participate in an External Review Board on the PIL/LEIR Project
from 26 to 28 June 2002. A pre-Review Board meeting will be held on 13
and 14 June 2002. S. Maury will give more information, once the members
of the external review board have been decided upon and invitations sent.
- Start-up accelerators : J.P. Delahaye was pleased to see that
Linac, PSB (with beam), ISOLDE and CTF3 are being started up on schedule
with no particular problems so far. The PS main magnet cooling circuit
was checked and no problems found.
- Access PS : due to the cooling water problems, it was, however,
not possible to complete all the programmed magnet tests on the PS. These
tests will require an 8 hour access to the ring and have been scheduled
for 16 April from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., so no PSB beam will be available
during that time.
- ISOLDE front-end : a vacuum leak was found on a quadrupole on
the GPS separator and a solution has been applied which it is hoped will
last.
- AD electron cooling power supplies: K. Metzmacher reported difficulties
with the high voltage supplies for electron cooling as no spare is available.
A faulty one was repaired, but broke again. One reserve has now been ordered
and two others are in repair. These spares for electron cooling high voltage
supplies were priority 1 on the proposed PS Consolidation programme.
- Safety : G. Daems spoke about an incident during the shutdown
when a number of vacuum components powered with high voltage were removed
to have access to certain PS magnets leaving the bare cables with several
kV. Following this risk of electrocution, measures must be taken to inform
people that equipment may be powered even when the machine is stopped.
He proposes to stress this in the shutdown preparation meetings and also
to post this information on notice boards at the entrances to the PS.
- Shutdown work : despite a longer shutdown, a lot of work had
to be done at the last minute. Profit should be gained from this experience
for the future long shutdowns and as in previous years it is proposed
to hold a post-mortem to pinpoint the problem areas.
3. Report from ELEC
Due to lack of time, J. Gruber gave only a brief report on the last ELEC
meeting. One important subject discussed concerned Mathematics Tools at
CERN. Due to the budget situation IT have been obliged to make expenditure
cuts on certain products. In addition the license for some products, such
as MATLAB has doubled. Group Leaders should find out which people are using
MATLAB in their groups and if it is possible for them to migrate to Mathcad
or Mathematica. Information should be sent to J. Gruber who will report
to ELEC.
Matters concerning the Design Office will be presented in a future meeting
when more information is available.
4. Report from the SPSC
J.P. Riunaud presented a summary
of the 57th SPSC held on 26.03.2002. The minutes
of the 56th Meeting were approved with, however, the addition of a phrase
in the paragraph concerning "Scientific activities at CERN in the next
years" which states "SPSC reiterated its grave concern about the
cuts in accelerator operations and loss of physics output". A report
was given on the 156th
and 157th meetings of the Research
Board, followed by status reports on the SPS and PS. The AD2/ATRAP
status report will be given at the next SPSC. Status reports from the other
experiments were then presented including AD3/ASACUSA
and HARP.
B. Allardyce gave a presentation
on Earned Value Management which is being introduced by L. Evans for the
LHC Project as soon as it can be implemented. A meeting was held last week
with DPOs and Project Leaders of the Accelerator Sector where Doug Fisher
of Fermilab gave a seminar on this technique. Discussions are taking place
with AS Division to develop BHT-style tools which will be used in conjunction
with MS Project (the Help file gives information on terms used in Earned
Value Management). Training courses will also have to be arranged.
The CERN Directorate strongly recommends to extend this technique to all
CERN activities following its implementation for LHC.
An overview of the method of Earned Value Management can be found at http://www.acq.osd.mil/pm/paperpres/wilkins_art.pdf.
This method was invented in the 1800s and adapted in the 1960s by the US
Department of Defense as the standard method for measuring project performance.
