The ITER Project Context

With environmental experts expressing serious fears that fossil fuels are in increasingly short supply, it seems that mankind is facing a potential energy crisis. But since the late 1950s, visionary scientists have been exploring fusion energy as a valid alternative. In Europe, the world’s most powerful fusion experiment, JET [based at Culham in the UK], is the only device currently capable of producing large amounts of fusion energy.

Now, that wealth of knowledge is playing a crucial role in the development of the ITER Tokamak – a global collaboration designed to bring this massive energy experiment to fruition.

Project Manager Today’s Editor, Amy Hatton, spoke to two leading experts from JET and ITER to get the latest on a megaproject that, if successful, will go down in the history books as a turning point for us all.

Professor Steven Cowley, Head of Culham Centre for Fusion Energy. CEO, United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority and Joseph Onstott, Budget Manager, International ITER Project for Fusion

Fusion Energy: The Story So Far

The construction of JET (the Joint European Torus) began as a response to the oil crisis of the 1970s and has grown to become the world’s most powerful fusion experiment, according to Cowley.

“Fusion is the power source of stars” he says. “We’re trying to tame that energy source to make power stations, with the hope of bringing the first fusion electricity to the grid by 2050. It’s a global effort but, at the moment, JET is the only fusion device capable of using the right fuel mix (two types of hydrogen – deuterium and tritium) and producing megawatt-scale fusion power. That places us at the cutting edge of modern science.”

Whilst JET was in its infancy, a group of industrial nations was discussing the importance of developing a new, sustainable source of energy. Following the Geneva Superpower Summit in 1985, the official ITER Organisation launched in 2007. JET is the most advanced fusion experiment today, the larger ITER device will take over this mantle and test the technology on an industrial scale, according to Onstott. “Essentially ITER is a collaboration between countries that are the leaders in fusion science, including the EU, China, Japan, Korea, India, Russia and the US” he explains.

“Our goal is to pool the resources and knowledge that have been accumulated over the past decades to develop the largest fusion device in the world. Right now, we’re coming to a crisis situation with fossil fuels. Renewable energy is advancing, but it only represents about 2% of the total energy landscape.

Fusion is very clean, the waste is negligible and we can theoretically produce an energy output from the Tokamak that equals ten times what we put in. Plus, deuterium and tritium are abundant and will last thousands of years. So we really believe that fusion is the energy source of the future.”

A Megaproject Defying Normal Parameters

Whilst the two megaprojects (which essentially function as components of one even larger megaproject) are in different stages of maturity, they carry strikingly similar challenges in terms of complexity.

In the case of JET, a megaproject that spans such an unusually long period of time provides a unique opportunity for lessons learned. Unlike many modern megaprojects, says Cowley, “JET never adopted a formal ‘off the shelf’ methodology en masse, although we do use standard industry tools like Primavera. Over the years, our people have brought expertise from their own highly skilled specialisms, introducing different industry standards to the project. Because JET has evolved over three decades, we have to adapt what was done at that beginning to modern practices.

But that’s not to say that we don’t engage in meticulous project planning. When we’re upgrading we can have 800 people working on the device. We have to bring together skills in electrical engineering, power engineering, IT, control engineering, mechanical engineering, health and safety…not to mention the implications of handling radioactive gas; we’re the world experts in handling tritium. An outstanding project culture is essential to deliver a facility in which the scientific community can operate.”

Onstott points out that this is an equally significant consideration for ITER. “The project management discipline is vitally important for us. As a result we’re seeing a developing focus within ITER on project management best practice, and growing numbers of our officers are becoming certified PM professionals. For ITER, the real complexity comes from our unique governance structure.

A Global Collaboration with Shared Goals

One of our key goals is to “ITER has been called a ‘social experiment that’s occasionally interrupted by technical difficulties’. Working with so many cultures, nationalities and governance structures is really an experiment in how to collaborate globally, and it poses a unique challenge for ITER.”

“We’re about to enter a phase where we conduct fusion power tests again and break our own world records. At that point we won’t be able to access the machine any other way but robotically. Unless we’re prepared for that we could face a scenario that puts us back two or three years.”

That’s why ITER was structured as a collaboration. Instead of holding the funding centrally, the different member states self-fund and contribute in kind. We’re guided by the ITER Council and various advisory bodies, but ultimately the decisions must be taken unanimously.

If one member objects that will block the decision. We’re starting to tackle that by introducing much more integrated project teams. In the future, instead of every ITER component being project managed locally, we will have international project teams responsible for that component.

We’ve also set up the ITER Cabinet, which comprises the Director General and all of the global leaders. That will facilitate collective and fast decision making. We’ve learned that we have to adapt the organisation to suit the model we’ve chosen for this project and work in a highly collaborative way.”

Cowley agrees that cultural challenges and project hierarchy have been key nuts for ITER to crack. “ITER is an enormously challenging piece of engineering. Every piece of it pushes the limits. One of the issues is that the design is the responsibility of the team on the site at Cadarache in France, but the procurement is the responsibility of seven domestic agencies of the global partners.

That separation of design and budget is a very difficult thing in a project – the design team naturally wants to perfect everything, whereas the procurement team’s priority is cost. You really want that tension to lie in one place. Through its efforts to bring more project management responsibility to Cadarache, ITER will place that tension between cost and performance more centrally so that it can be better managed.”

Lessons Learned: A Culture of Efficiency

Naturally we all strive for efficiency in projects – so what lessons can the PM community absorb from these massive endeavours? For Cowley, one of the key messages is the importance of planning. “As an example, we maintain JET largely through ‘remote handling’, and over the years we’ve developed a culture around doing that efficiently.

It’s not so much about the robotic systems themselves, it’s more about how you design the object you need to maintain so that it’s easy to do via remote handling.

Unless you think about potential problems at the beginning of the project you won’t get the desired result. So we’ve developed a culture where the design of the machine is reviewed and understood by the maintenance specialists in a very detailed way, right from the start. We rehearse the maintenance of that component – not just virtually but physically in a practice facility – to understand whether we’re planning the right design and  way forward.

Design something that can be easily fixed

We’re about to enter a phase where we conduct fusion power tests again and break our own world records. At that point we won’t be able to access the machine any other way but robotically. Unless we’re prepared for that we could face a scenario that puts us back two or three years. That lesson is even more crucial now because ITER’s construction is massively complex and it will be too radioactive to get close to any other way but remotely. It’s not just about designing a megaproject that will work, it’s also crucial to design something that will be fixable in a short amount of time.”

From Onstott’s perspective, project controls also present a major challenge, but one that is crucial to the success of ITER. “One of the difficulties for us is the hand-off point. You might have a certain component being manufactured in one country before it’s transported to another country for the next stage of development – and then shipped to another for final manufacturing. Managing those handovers is a real challenge.

We firstly have to define a realistic schedule incorporating realistic dates from the suppliers and underpinned by manufacturing schedules. That must then propagate upwards to our global members who integrate it into their organisations to give us full visibility, so that we can incorporate and assess all of the different opportunities.

Complex Stakeholder Management

That’s a big challenge because there are so many social, political, environmental and financial things happening – not always expected – in all the countries at any given time. Sometimes, before the contract has even been issued to the manufacturer, we find out that they can’t supply to the agreed timeframe for unforeseen reasons.

That triggers a change request that has to be approved and integrated into all the different schedules. Funnily enough, we’re a lot more confident in meeting our technical targets. ITER has been called a ‘social experiment that’s occasionally interrupted by technical difficulties’. Working with so many cultures, nationalities and governance structures is really an experiment in how to collaborate globally, and it poses a unique challenge for ITER.

In project management we usually talk about the three sided triangle: cost, scope and schedule. ITER is more of a parallelogram. The fourth side of that is stakeholder management. We’re accountable to so many stakeholders – from the French nuclear regulatory authorities to US Congress and numerous governments across the world. So there’s widespread communication and accountability that’s crucial to ensure that we continue our coalition. Managing that is a highly complex business.”

Cowley adds that JET has paved the way in this area through early project experiences. “JET is an easier machine to deal with than ITER because it’s not going to be as radioactive or use as much power. But it’s still a massively challenging project.

We’ve been instrumental in designing the radio frequency systems that will beam enormous amounts of power into the highly hostile environment inside ITER. That was a trans-European design effort, with the UK playing a leading role. The initial consortium for the design of ITER itself involved multiple contracts, headed up by Fusion for Energy in Barcelona. Even by the time the design got to ITER itself there had been multiple international collaborations to bring together the design and planning requirements.

Our role at CCFE is to deliver £140 million of contracts for ITER. We’re bringing our technology to them – not just the remote handling equipment but the whole way in which that interfaces with the machine and the restrictions that places on the design of the machine itself. It becomes a technology transfer exercise and that’s very much in keeping with the spirit and the goals of ITER.”

Potential and Perseverance: The Future of Fusion

Despite the seemingly endless challenges presented by both JET and ITER, there is no doubt that the collective potential inspires not only these two project leaders, but everyone involved in these most ambitious of ventures.

As Onstott says: “We really do believe that fusion has the potential to solve the world’s energy problems. We believe in the project and its potential to change the world if it comes to fruition. It truly is a megaproject in all senses of the word.”

Cowley shares his conviction. “One day the world will be powered by fusion. There will be a time when ITER reaches the point of producing its first self-sustained fusion burn. I want to be there because that will be the culmination of my life’s work. Just like the first chain reaction in the middle of the second world war when nuclear energy was launched, the first time a controlled fusion burn is done in ITER will be written in the history books, and remembered as a turning point not just for science, but for mankind as a whole.”

Your Chance to See ITER in Action

Fusing the Project World – 4th September 2015

The organisers of eVaintheUK have announced that they will be hosting a project management conference at ITER’s Headquarters. The itinerary includes a Tour of the ITER Project Construction Site of the ITER site and networking dinner at the nearby Le Relais du Grand Logis hotel , as well as a packed line-up of speakers and themes for project management practitioners and stakeholders.

For more information, visit www.evaintheuk.org and Conference Registration – Book your place for just 99 Euros.

 

 

Interview with Mark Robinson

Project Magazine – September 2014 Issue [with permission]

Mark Robinson is Head of PM People and Governance at Airbus, he has helped drive a sustainable change in PM culture across the business and improve the overall competencies of the PM population. Mark looks back on the past few years at Airbus and recognises a significant change within his business environment.

“Go back five or six years and we were benchmarking outside of Airbus,” he explains. “We have gone through a real business transformation step by step and in some areas without even knowing it and that is best sometimes. Companies are now coming to us as they see what we are doing in Project and Programme Management and using us as a benchmark.”

But as Mark explains it wasn’t always the case.

“Go back in history at Airbus when we had share price impacting issues involving our now flagship aircraft, the A380.  Developing a new aircraft means you are betting the company as you are spending over 10bn euros – it’s a huge complex project to manage. We realised we had to do things differently and so we did.”

The levers of change

“The real levers for change came after the publication of two influential reports in 2007/08, one by Deloittes the other by the US government accountability office. They assessed why their Aerospace and Defence contracts were late and over budget and analysed five route causes. These included programme management challenges, technical complexity issues, talent shortage, supply chain challenges and politics.”

“In Airbus we had many of these same issues,” adds Mark. “The talent shortage was a key driver for Airbus both in project management and systems engineering as were the supply chain challenges, as over 60 % of our work is in the supply chain and that is really key to making the project a success.”

Mark found that there was no supported PM or PMO development path. “In Airbus, PMO is both an organisation (project and programme office) and a role (project management officer). It became clear that we needed to drive a dedicated development path for our PMOs and Project leaders and also at the same time improve the integration of process methods and tools. The vision was to create a sustainable cultural change.”

Launch of Centre of Competence for PPM

In 2009 a Group wide PM Improvement Programme was launched and as part of this Airbus set up a Centre of Competence for Project and Programme Management with a vision to create a sustainable cultural change.

Mark explains. “We had tried to deliver this before but it never got the right level of attention, this time around the vision was backed up with the attitude that we are going to ensure we deliver. “There was a budget and resource to support it and there was board level sponsorship. It came from the very top.

“It was essential that it was sponsored at board level. A lot of senior people thought that they should personally support and move it forward rather than treat it as another initiative and risk losing the momentum.” Airbus recognised that culture change would take time but saw it as an integral way of working in the future.

Mark adds: “It was always a long term vision. To support this we set up the Airbus Group PM Council and a Steering Board as well. The role of those was to sponsor the change but also to set the strategic direction and harmonise group policies on project and programme management which we hadn’t really done before across the whole group.

Project Categorisation and PM Certification

Two initial key drivers we then launched to support this were Project Categorisation and PM Certification. This was not just symbolic but a clear sign that we believed in what we were doing “

Project Categorisation is an agreed Airbus Group policy, mandated across the business. It assesses any project against 16 weighted criteria, looking at elements like project complexity, risk and the overall project challenge. The priority is to assess the Projects prior to launch because the result drives other processes including PM Certification, and Earned Value Management implementation.

Mark says: “We did some outside benchmarking with some companies such as Siemens and then put that into our own business context so it made sense for Airbus.

“So we assess the different elements looking for objective evidence and enter the results into a model. From this we get a score which determines the Project Category based on five levels – Iron, Bronze, Silver, Gold and Platinum. Each assessment is reviewed by an independent panel before the Category is formally assigned.

Mark believes that because of the collaborative nature of the categorisation process project leaders gain a better understanding of the Project itself.

How it works in practice

“We don’t just look at the budget but review the complexity of supply chain, maturity of the technology, etc. and it gives a really good view of the project from different angles and people do really learn a lot from the process. At first people saw it as a compliance thing – which they had to do it – but the feedback that we get from project leaders and PMO’s is that it really does add value.” It identifies what we know but more importantly what we don’t know and that is where we need to put our energies.

However, it was the introduction of the PM Certification that proved to be the real enabler for cultural change across the business.

Mark explains: “We spent a huge effort in benchmarking and developing our own model which is fully aligned with the Project Categorisation process. “We have five different levels of PM certification which looks at the individuals experience in project management, product and technical management, multi-function and multi-cultural experience and also the finance and business related experience. What differentiates this is that we don’t just look at project leaders and PMO’s on our Aircraft Programmes but the wider population too. For example we actively encourage Engineers, IS/IT Project leaders and business change project leaders to be involved.”

The PM’s personal dossier

Each applicant fills in a personal dossier as part of the scheme. Airbus deals with around 50 dossiers a month and by September of this year should have 2,000 people having gone through the process.

“There is no pressure to complete a dossier in a given time period it depends on the individual, their experience training and career path to date,” explains Mark. “The dossier is then formally assessed by an independent panel who either grants the person a specific Certification level or sometimes a level is suggested but advises them what gaps they need to fill before a Certificate can be granted. This could be through additional training for example.

Once certified they become part of our PM Professional Certification population.

At the start it was not easy. We had a huge stakeholder management exercise and many communication events. People needed convincing. However this was not just a ‘one off’.

We still ensure individuals are supported when going through the process to allay any fears they may have and we still are continuing to communicate at every level including reporting to the Airbus Group PM Steering Board.

“We aim to be very  people focused and once individuals go through the certification scheme this is linked to a development plan – what do you need to do to get to the next level and what is the career path within the business? We work very closely with our HR colleagues. “What we are trying to do now is match the project category to the certification levels of the individuals. At first people were nervous they thought that if they didn’t get the right level of certification would they still be the project leader? This is certainly not the case but for new Projects Certification is really an entry criteria so when we advertise for a new role we now put the certification level required.

“On some of the major Programmes  the heads of Programme and chief engineers are now certified – it’s leading by example and that has really changed the behaviour and the mindset within the company and makes it easier to drive the change.”

The role of the PMO

One area the business recognised a need for change was the role and perception of the PMO. With currently around 650 PMOs deployed around the business, Airbus thought it was vital to raise their professional standing.

“People were recruiting PMOs across the business and calling them PMOs but they weren’t really doing the PMO job. What we did was bring the PMO population under the umbrella of the Centre of Competence and create a clear job description with associated competencies.

One of the key drivers for this was that we increase the ‘make/buy’ ratio. Historically in some areas the ‘make’ was 20 per cent and the ‘buy’ was 80 per cent, so we had a huge turnover of people and were losing the skills and capabilities of the individuals.

The ‘make/buy’ is now around 50/50 and we partner with just three different companies for the supply of our PMO resource – more of a strategic partnership – to raise the skill level of our PMO population and the role itself.

We are very strict now, if someone wants a PMO we approve what they are doing through a clear job description or for external resource through a work specification which is formally validated.

We have taken away the perception that the PMO is just a project administrator but more of a navigator or rally driver. We are driving a real profession and a supportive career/development path. We still have a way to go but it’s a real success story.”

Sharing PM Knowledge

To support our PM population we have brought together the shared PM knowledge for Project, Portfolio and Programme Management into our PM @ Airbus Guidebook. This year we have just launched our Version 2 printing 5000 hardcopies but also complemented by an electronic flipbook version. Together with the electronic PM reference library which contains all the PM Standards, templates and best practice examples this really helps to reduce the learning curve effect especially when people move from one project type to another and has now become our bible.”

Another of Mark’s roles at Airbus is head of the Airbus Group PM Academy. This year alone the Aircraft side of Airbus is training 6,000 different people from across the business in various elements of Project, Programme and Portfolio Management with an increasing emphasis on behavioural training.

Mark adds: “Four years ago we would do more of the hard skills training – training in the tools etc. Where we are focusing now and moving ahead in the future with the Human side of PM.  As part of our PM certification scheme we also have mandated a broad range of training that people need to do so they get a wider view of PM for example contractual management, supply chain management, configuration management.

PPM Qualifications

I was in Tokyo recently for a conference and all the delegates were wearing badges saying they were a PMP professional. Everyone thought that was the highest qualification in project management so I said to them in the presentation that the PMP is important as is the APMP for APM and we recognise both, but they are just one element at our bronze level certification. It puts it into a little bit of context, we want the more rounded individual as well and the qualification is just one element.

The launch of the Development Centre for Project Management (DCPM) is another key area of development. Devised to run eight times a year with 12 individuals at a time and sponsored by the Airbus Group PM Council it’s all about the individual’s personal development.”

Mark adds: “It’s a development centre not an assessment centre which is quite important. People come to the centre by nomination, but they must have completed their PM certification. We are not assessing them for promotion we are looking at how they can improve their own personal development.“

Alongside the DCPM, Airbus also runs workshops known as PM Adventure which targets both project management and change management professionals.

“The focus here has is on our bronze level within our PM certification scheme whereas the DCPM is targeted at silver level. Before the workshop each participant has an emotional intelligence test which looks at different elements including self-awareness, assertiveness, self actualisation etc. They get individual confidential feedback from this and then work as part of a business simulation for a fictitious company. Each person is given intensive peer feedback and then after the two days can transfer the learning straight back into the business. We also help them create their own personal development plan.

To complement the above we have set up a partnership (initially in France) to launch a Masters Degree in PM built upon the competence model of the industrial partners (technical and soft skills). This will be available across the whole Airbus group as a fast track for:

• Engineers who wish to move into PM
• Project Leaders and PMO’s who need to increase their competencies”

Business Change at Airbus

Mark believes that Airbus is leading the way in business change with the development of its Leaner Business improvement Project plus (LBIP+) methodology, launched in March.

Mark says: “From all my experience I don’t know any other company that has integrated project management, lean management and change management together in one methodology. LBIP+ is another key lever for us – it’s a methodology. We have a lifecycle and it is supported by specific competence, for example, the leaders of a business improvement project need additional competencies in change management. So now we have recognised that the people running business improvement projects may need a slightly differentiated learning solution.

Within the methodology there is a dedicated lifecycle and interactive e-site, Blended Learning, gate review checklists, tool kits for PM, Lean and Change Management. Importantly we have the ability to tailor the approach to the complexity of the Project.

We probably run at any one time 2,000 business improvement projects. These range from local improvement to major Transformation Platforms where you are looking to save over 1bn euros and you need good project and programme management practices to do that.

So it’s really an holistic approach and it is now mandated throughout Airbus. We have a momentum now, we work very closely with the lean academy and the lean guys.  It is really powerful.

To capitalise on the learning we also have a dedicated Community of Practice (CoP) where we bring together practitioners from around the business to share good practices, lessons learned and to animate the network.

Moving forward we aim to keep up the momentum. We do recognise that the business is changing from major new Aircraft Developments to more incremental developments such as our A320 and A330 NEO projects. Time to Market is key. We have production ramp ups to manage and a widening Industrial footprint such as our new Final Assembly Line in Mobile Alabama.  Speed, Simplicity and Agility is required in everything we do and I believe with the enhanced competencies of the PM population we are ready to deliver.”

Mark has now teamed up with Steve Wake from eVaintheUK to organize a show-case two day conference in Toulouse on 23^rd & 24^th October called Making Projects Fly. During this event more than 100 delegates, drawn from across Airbus and elsewhere to share experience and good practices learn how to build still better P3M professionals together.

Listen to Mark’s presentation at #eva19

[PM Channel Archive]