At the all-hands meeting following the 15th Management Advisory Council (MAC), which took place last week in Saint Paul-lez-Durance, MAC Chair Ranjay Sharan (here with Council Secretary Sachiko Ishizaka) told staff: ''The entire world is looking toward this project and to the work that you have done, that you are doing, and that you will do.''
Following closely on the heels of the Science and Technology Advisory Committee,
STAC, which convened at ITER Headquarters from 14-16 May, the ITER Council's management advisory body, the Management Advisory Committee, MAC, met from 21 to 23 May to examine strategic management issues such as schedule, cost and the implementation of plans for installation and assembly, testing and commissioning.
Close to fifty experts from the seven ITER Members were present in the Council Chamber of the Headquarters Building to address the charges from the last ITER Council (IC-11, November 2012) as well as the additional charges that resulted from the
special meeting of the MAC in March.
As at the last meeting, the schedule remained the focus of discussion. MAC recognized the efforts of the ITER Organization and the Domestic Agencies that have resulted in improvement, particularly on the critical systems and components, and made further suggestions.
In the all-hands meeting that followed the closing session of the MAC, the ITER Director-General Osamu Motojima told the hundreds of staff members assembled, "At the conclusion of three days of discussion, I can tell you that the MAC was a productive one for us. We can draw up an action plan today, based on the recommendations from the MAC experts. As a Unique ITER Team we have made intense efforts to improve schedule performance and to implement the related corrective measures. We can and will keep this positive schedule trend."
In break-out sessions over the course of the three days, MAC Chair Ranjay Sharan, from India, had time to comment: "Issue-based solutions are being found, one after another. The most important thing is that collaboration has increased and the Unique ITER Team (UIT) is working. We may be only in the initial stages ... the UIT has yet to give concrete results ... but we understand one another's problems better. I want to insist on this: cooperation is the tool that will make this project successful."
The report and recommendations formulated by the 15th meeting of the Management Advisory Council will be discussed at the next meeting of the ITER Council, which will take place in Tokyo, Japan from 19-20 June 2013.
