Managing the development of plant subsystems for a large international project

ITER is an international collaborative project under development by nations representing over one half of the world's population. Major components will be supplied by 'Domestic Agencies' representing the various participating countries. While the supervisory control system, known as CODAC, will be developed 'in fund' by the International Organization at the project site in the south of France, the EPICS and PLC-based plant control subsystems are to be developed and tested locally, where the subsystems themselves are being built. This is similar to the model used for the development of the Spallation Neutron Source, which was a US national collaboration. However the much more complex constraints of an international collaboration preclude the use of many specifics of the SNS collaboration approach. Moreover, procedures for final system integration and commissioning at ITER are not yet well defined. This paper will outline the particular issues either inherent in an international collaboration or specific to ITER, and will suggest approaches to mitigate those problems with the goal of assuring a successful and timely integration and commissioning phase. (author)