Session Abstracts

The session description abstracts are shown below. When you register for the workshop, you will be given an opportunity to contribute an oral presentation or poster covering one or more of the session topics. Submitted abstracts will be forwarded to the appropriate session chair.

  1. HWDB - How We Do Business                                                              Jon Bonofiglio
    • This session is an opportunity for facilities new to WAO (or established facilities, if newly restructured) to share their business model for operations.  How is your lab organized from a daily operational standpoint?  Do you have a unique structure that lends itself to providing a meaningful end user experience?  How does operations interface with the conventional facilities?  How many operators and what is the best shift rotation?  What challenges does operations at your facility face?  These are just a few of many critical questions about how we do business.  Most importantly, what concrete lessons, experiences and examples can workshop attendees take back to their facilities to implement?

 

  1. New Control Room Technologies                                                     Petra Schuett
  • There are many new technologies available that could be adapted to the Control Room.  Some of them might be new computer screens/monitors, video walls, fixed displays, touch screens, other input devices, etc.  We would like to see examples of what is available and how it is being used in control rooms.

 

  1. Happy User’s Index – Customer Satisfaction                                 Rossano Giachino
  • How is machine reliability and availability impacted by the user’s requirements?  Sometimes the users are happy with any beam as opposed to waiting for “quality” beam.  They don’t want the high intensity, high luminosity, brightness, stable spill structure or any of the other parameters used to describe user’s beam quality.  What kind of beam quality do they need?  What are important parameters to them?  What impact does ‘customer satisfaction’ have on typical machine statistics?  The availability of a machine is usually considered the % of time that all system will be available to produce physic beams. These systems will have to be reliable to maximize the availability of the beam time. Various topics like Beam Quality metrics, performance statistics or repair tracking will be presented to explain how they will contribute to increase the overall availability.

 

  1. Operating a Superconducting Machine                                             Qing Qin
    • The operation of a superconducting machine and components is unique.  It requires special attention and procedures.  A simple mistake can cause extended downtime.   What kind of additional stress does it put on operations and how do labs deal with it?

 

  1. Software Tools (Including remote operation)                                 Kazuro Furukawa
    • Remote operation is different than is was a few years ago.  We are not running machines from foreign countries.  The possibilities of running and diagnosing machines/systems from home, a mobile devices, etc., are an issue.  What new tools are available and how are they being used?

 

  1. Automation Without Losing Skills                                                    Laurent Hardy
    • We can obviously state that a good Operator is an operator who understands what is beyond the click of the mouse! Being able to act on an equipment at every step of a refill (or any other action) can be a source of motivation. This can however be also a source for human mistake and loss of time ... With years and with the need for frequent refills in some light sources operating in top-up mode (sometimes every 30-60 seconds), the need for automated sequencers has become unavoidable. The drawback is that the operator then loses the insight control of sub-steps. To some extent, software engineers may even think about a fully automated accelerator where a 'push-button operator' will be present only to diagnose a failure and restart a sequencer.

      The talks of this session should answer the following questions:

      - In your Institute, what is the trade-off between operator manual actions and automation?

      - How can you maintain the skills and motivation of your operators if on the other hand, all (or almost) is done by automatic sequencers?

      - When you decide to create some more automation, do you involve your operators in the specifications?    Do the operators write sequencers themselves?

      - How can you still control what is going on in an automatic sequence?

      - Based on your experience of 'automating' everything, what would be your recommendations to the operation managers who still hesitate to make the step?

      - What are the mistakes you will not do anymore?

      - What are the feedbacks from your operators?

 

  1.  Operator Training (Online Lectures)                                                 Dan Johnson
    • We all have our established training programs and methods of training.  Training and tracking training can be time consuming and require extensive manpower.  What new methods are available to help us with training and tracking training?  Are there any existing training programs or lectures developed by others that can be used?  Shared training and lectures might be a possibility.  What training or lectures are available online that labs can share?  A good example would be an online training lecture on synchrotron radiation.  The training would provide a topic general enough for all to learn and apply to their machine.  Online lectures, classes, and presentations may provide a new way to provide information on machines and accelerator physics.  We would like to examine what is available and how labs are taking advantage of this and other resources.

 

  1. Operator Issues (Motivation, managing, open discussion)               Peter Ingrassia
    • How do you run an operations group?  How do you keep operators motivated and happy ultimately keeping them in the group.  The operator job is changing fast.  The diversification of machines and systems require different skills to operate and troubleshoot them.  The physics schedules and new budgets problems are redefining the job of an operator.  How do we motivate these operators, maintain their knowledge, and keep their interest on accelerators? Responsibility, team building, part time jobs on other systems (possibly only during shutdowns), are a small sample of items which may be part of the recipe.

 

  1. Commission and Re-Commissioning (Checkout before beam)       Rossano Giachino
    • The commissioning of a new machine or re-commissioning a machine after a long shut down is a delicate and important moment not to be missed. This technique is now widely used to make sure all systems are operational before injecting beam. Small and large facilities will go through this procedure and will illustrate how different approaches are used to achieve this goal.

 

  1. Communication (Logbooks, managing tools)                                      Glen Johns
    • Good communication practices are a key piece of control room operations and represent a broad topic of interest. One of the communication challenges we face is how to keep the off shift crews up to date. This session is an opportunity to discuss these challenges and present creative solutions and offer best practices for effective communications within and outside the operations team.  Logbooks are also communication tools and are becoming more and more sophisticated. Does your facility have a great one? This session is a great opportunity to show off your logbook and educate others in the process.

 

  1. Procedures (Document Control)                                                      Violeta Toma
    • The document control process ensures that every master document can be identified and located with certainty; it is used to track a document's revision history and to control how document revisions are made, reviewed, authorized, and released. Document control preserves document integrity by ensuring that only the current, authorized, and non-editable version is released. It ensures that the master copy, which is vaulted, can only be checked-in and -out by the authorized owner(s).

Developers provided many solutions for document control over the years. Which document control system do you use and why? What is the overhead associated with the document control of your choice?

 

  1. Radiation Safety Tasks Performed by Operators                          Michael Bieler
    • There are a few radiation safety tasks performed by operators and they vary from laboratory to laboratory.  If these tasks aren’t performed properly, people can be injured.  We would like to examine ways to assist and control these tasks by providing easy to follow techniques, methods or procedures.  Some incidents may be shared to help demonstrate a problem and solution.

 

  1. Incidents and Lessons Learned                                                        Michael Stanek
    • Many labs experience common failures and maybe they wouldn’t if we could share some of our experiences.  The analysis of some incidents and lessons learned might provide a wakeup call to other labs.  For instance, Fermilab and TJNAF damaged magnets in similar incidents.

 

  1. Poster Session                                                                                    Eiichi Takada
    • This session will be used as a method of soliciting input from laboratories that may not want or have a chance to give a presentation.