Bringing ITER components to Cadarache

Planning has begun for the complex logistics task of bringing ITER components from factories on three continents to the ITER site in Cadarache. Following the selection of the European company DAHER as Logistics Service Provider (LSP) in February, a two-person DAHER team is now on site to pilot the initial planning phase of the LSP contract.

Laurence Prudhomme, operations manager, and Barry Paul, planning manager, are working closely with the ITER Organization and the Domestic Agencies to collect the many thousands of pieces of information that will allow the DAHER "control room" to plan for—and closely follow—the delivery of ITER components according to the ITER Project's overall schedule.

"The first phase of our mission is fact finding," explains Laurence. "We need to gather detailed information on manufacturing schedules and on the specificities of each load to be transported. We need to look into ship availability, pairing the needs of each load (i.e., heavy lift) with the capacity of each vessel."

Working backwards from the dates the components need to be on site, DAHER will plan all the steps in the transport process—from arranging the specific point of contact where it will take over responsibility for each load, to final delivery. As LSP provider, DAHER is in charge of insurance, customs clearance, interim storage before delivery, handling and unloading on site. During the eighteen months of the planning phase, DAHER will be initiating import customs procedures with the French authorities, and—via its agencies and local partners—export procedures at each manufacturing location.

DAHER IT engineers are currently adapting the company's logistics and industrial flow management tool, DAgeSCOPE_SUPERSCRIPT_TM_/SUPERSCRIPT_ to fit the specificities of the ITER contract. Progressively "filled in" during the planning phase and the future implementation phase, this centralized database will be a powerful tool for optimizing shipments and for orchestrating deliveries according to the progress of ITER assembly.

"Once we have a more detailed schedule of all loads to transport, we'll focus on consolidating shipments wherever possible," says Laurence. "Imagine that we have two loads ready for shipment in Korea and two others nearly ready in Japan. We'll try to organize the shipment of all four loads in the same vessel by coordinating with the different parties."

As part of the initial fact-finding mission, Planning Manager Barry Paul is making a visit to all ITER Domestic Agencies to initiate discussions and conclude individual agreements within the framework of the LSP contract.

The team has one year to prepare for an important deliverable, according to Laurence: "By mid-2013, we will have all the elements we need to provide a comprehensive Transport and Logistics Global Plan (TLGP) to the ITER Organization, containing all the organizational and scheduling details for bringing each ITER component to Cadarache at the requested date."