Three contractors involved in CERN’s forthcoming CM experiment’s magnet project became the first beneficiaries of the collaboration’s new awards scheme on 5 June. In the two-tiered scheme, major contractors deemed by the collaboration to have delivered exceptional service will receive the CMS Crystal Award. Other contractors are eligible for the CMS Gold Award.
CMS has initiated the scheme as a motivating factor for all of its contractors, and as a way of rewarding excellence. A panel of five has been established to consider award nominations made by CMS project leaders, and to make recommendations to the experiment’s Collaboration Board. Criteria considered by the panel include strict adherence to the terms and deadlines of a contract, a good working relationship and exceptional performance in terms of innovation.
The first three awards were made during a CMS collaboration meeting at CERN. It is no accident that they all went to contractors working on the experiment’s magnet, since that is the furthest advanced component of the new experiment. A Crystal Award went to Germany’s Deggendorfer Werft und Eisenbau (DWE) GmbH, principal contractor for the CMS magnet yoke. DWE delivered the fifth and final wheel for the barrel part of the yoke on time and within budget just before the meeting began. Gold Awards were presented to two of DWE’s subcontractors: Izhora of St Petersburg, which produced the 120 forged iron blocks making up the magnet yoke, and ZDAS of the Czech Republic, which made the brackets that will hold them all together in 12-sided wheels.
