Director's Corner
15 December 2005
Barry Barish
Change Control Board
Last week at Frascati, we successfully established the baseline configuration that will serve as the basis for the ILC reference design and costing to be carried out next year. There was consensus on most decisions. I would characterize the final configuration as somewhat conservative, due to my design guidance that choices should be forward looking and, consistent with creating a baseline that we will be able to reliably cost next year. In the Baseline Configuration Document (BCD), we also discuss alternatives that need more R&D, but could improve the performance or lower the cost of the ILC.
Configuration Control is a commonly used project management tool that is employed in large complicated construction projects, in order to enable a complete and unique description to be made at any given time. Potential changes are systematically evaluated for their impact on performance, cost and risk before being adopted by a change control board. We are incorporating this type of project management tool at this time for the ILC, because we are planning to perform a reference design and costing over a very short period of time next year. To succeed in achieving the design and costing as planned, we will need to have a stable and well-documented configuration.
The first task for the CCB will be to complete the documentation in the BCD and to develop the procedures to be used for proposing and evaluating suggested changes to the baseline. In addition to maintaining the baseline, the CCB will assess R&D projects on alternatives that are defined in the BCD. The CCB will analyze and define what needs to be demonstrated for each of these R&D projects, in order to be seriously considered for a CCB action to replace the baseline.
The CCB will function in the usual responsive role for such boards regarding proposed changes. They will also play a more pro--active role in defining R&D that could lead to potential changes to the configuration that improve performance or reduce costs. The CCB will assess the alternatives documented in the BCD and define what will need to be demonstrated for each of these items, in order to be considered for a change action.
This important role for the CCB will help us to focus, define and prioritize the R&D programs, for a global R&D Board that was also established at Frascati. I will discuss the R&D board in a future column.
Nobu Toge
The Change Control Board will be chaired by Nobu Toge of KEK. It will be responsible for holding the configuration and determining changes to the configuration, which includes defining the R&D on alternatives to the baseline. The Design Cost Board will be chaired by Peter Garbincius of Fermilab. It will be responsible for guiding and overseeing the design and cost efforts for the reference design. Finally, the Global R&D Board will be chaired by Bill Willis of Columbia University. This board will be responsible for assessing and providing guidance for the global R&D program in support of the baseline and for alternatives and other ILC related research. It will also provide guidance and priorities for the detector R&D program.
The detailed work on the ILC reference design will be carried out regionally in our various laboratories through technical area and global groups. The technical groups will carry out the design tasks for the subsystems covered by the previous working groups and the expanded set of global groups will carry out the unifying efforts across all the subsystems for vacuum, cryogenics, controls, instrumentation, etc.