FPN14-06

ITER Council Focuses on Management

March 5, 2014

The ITER Council, the governing body that oversees the 7-nation consortium that is constructing the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) in France, met in "extraordinary" session in mid-February "to respond to the recommendations of the third biennial management assessment required by the ITER Agreement." In a tersely worded press release issued February 13 following the meeting, the Council, chaired since January of this year by American Robert Iotti, stated that it had "unanimously approved implementation of management reforms in response to all of the recommendations." They said, "These reforms cover the ITER Organization, the Domestic Agencies and the operation of the ITER Council and its subsidiary bodies to ensure that the overall ITER Project governance and management are fit for the challenges and needs of the next phases of the Project." They stated, "The Council will ensure that all the reforms are properly carried out in the near- and intermediate -term."

The management assessment was carried out by an American firm, Madia & Associates, LLC, headed by William Madia a former director (2000-2003) of Oak Ridge National Laboratory. He was aided by two other Americans, Charles Shank (Professor Emeritus at UC Berkeley) and T. J. Glauthier (a former Deputy Secretary of the US Department of Energy).

The Madia group recommended that a "Project Culture" needed to be created within ITER so that "a sense of excitement" would be felt "at every meeting and interaction". To create such a culture they suggested the Council needed to "identify and attract new project leadership with experience in managing large projects, a passion for success, and sensitivity to the international nature of ITER." They suggested that "project management consultants from industry" be engaged "to evaluate the project and establish metrics that measure the state of the project culture". They also recommended reducing the number of senior managers in the ITER Organization.

Among the group's other 11 recommendations, they suggested strengthening Systems Engineering, instilling a Nuclear Safety Culture, developing a Realistic ITER Project Schedule, and simplifying the ITER Organization Bureaucracy. The Executive Summary of the ITER management assessment was recently published on the New Yorker magazine website. A link to it and other recent articles on ITER are posted at http://fire.pppl.gov

A PDF of the management assessment report is also available on request from Fusion Power Associates fusionpwrassoc@aol.com