The LHC project at CERN requires both the handling of a huge amount of engineering information and the control of the coherence of this information as the design work evolves on the machine and the experiments. A commercial Engineering Data Management System, (EDMS), is being implemented to manage data for the design, construction, installation and maintenance of both the accelerator and the experiments. This CERN-wide project is called CEDAR The World Wide Web is used to make the information accessible at CERN and in the external collaborating laboratories around the world. In this paper we describe the objectives of the CEDAR project, the different subprojects in the machine and the experiments as well as the first results of the implementation work

Delamare, Christophe

Dittus, F B

Evensen, R

Faber, G

Faugeras, B

Ferran, M

Hauviller, Claude

Høimyr, Nils-Joar

Mottier, M

Nikkola, J

Petit, S

Pettersson, Thomas Sven

Rousseau, B

Van der Welde, H

CERN Document Server

EUROPEAN ORGANIZATION FOR NUCLEAR RESEARCHEuropean Laboratory for Particle PhysicsCERN   EST/98-04 (ISS)The CEDAR ProjectC. Delamare, F. Dittus, R. Evensen, M. Ferran, C. Hauviller, B. Faugeras, N.Høimyr,M. Mottier, S. Petit, T. Pettersson, B. Rousseau, H. van der Welde,G.Faber/CMS, J. Nikkola/HIPAbstractThe LHC project at CERN requires both the handling of a huge amount of engineeringinformation and the control of the coherence of this information as the design workevolves on the machine and the experiments.  A commercial Engineering DataManagement System, (EDMS), is being implemented to manage data for the design,construction, installation and maintenance of both the accelerator and the experiments.This CERN-wide project is called CEDAR1  The World Wide Web is used to make theinformation accessible at CERN and in the external collaborating laboratories around theworld.  In this paper we describe the objectives of the CEDAR project, the differentsubprojects in the machine and the experiments as well as the first results of theimplementation work.Paper presented at the Sixth European Particle Accelerator Conference22-26 June 1998, City Conference Centre, Stockholm, SwedenGeneva, SwitzerlandDecember 1998                                                       1  CEDAR = CERN EDMS for Detectors and Accelerators- 2 –1. INTRODUCTIONThe LHC project at CERN requires the management of huge amounts of engineering andproject data in the progress from design to construction to operation.The data must not only be produced, it must be captured in its various formats, organized,and its coherence kept under control.  An Engineering Data Management System (EDMS) is being setup to handle this task.  The implementation effort is managed as a CERN-wide project, since both theCollider and the LHC experiments have expressed their need of such a system.The rationale for introducing an EDMS now at CERN is twofold: never before has CERNbuilt such large detectors and such a complex accelerator with so many participants in so manycountries over such a long time period; the age profile of the CERN population is such that a largenumber of the staff constructing both detectors and machine will retire long before the LHC does.  Theteams that will operate and maintain the machine and the detectors will have to possess documentationthat describes the installed equipment and the reasons for design decisions taken decades earlier.2. INTRODUCING AN ENGINEERING DATA MANAGEMENT SYSTEMThe introduction of an EDMS into any organisation requires more than computingtechnology, in fact the computing aspect may be the easiest part of the entire enterprise.  CERN has along experience in managing CAD drawings with computers, the Oracle Drawings Directory was inlimited use more than 10 years ago.  The successor, the CERN Drawings Directory (CDD)2[1],designed to manage all CERN drawings, was put into production at the same time that a CERN wideEDMS Task Force was contemplating a global engineering data management solution for the entireLHC project. CDD, with its large drawing database is now being merged into the EDMS as asubsystem.CERN invented the Web to distribute information about experiments and data amongphysicists.  Using the Web to search for information is now part of our culture.  However, before beingable to provide anything else than limited amounts of data with access and versions kept under controlon the Web, or elsewhere, a number of basic, even elementary procedures and processes have to bedefined. If the procedures and processes exist they have to be formalised; if they do not exist they alsohave to be defined and agreed upon by the user community.  For instance, the rules for circulation andapproval of engineering documents have to be defined and documented before being implemented in acomputer system.A large part of the initial effort of the CEDAR project was devoted to this task, makingprogress look very slow.  In this respect the advent of the personal computer has perhaps created moreproblems than it has solved.  Collecting data and documents created and stored on a variety of formatson many different types of platforms is not an easy task.The standardisation of word processing tools, providing uniform templates might seem to beoutside the reach of the EDMS proper.  However, if the end-user cannot produce documents that latercan be retrieved and printed at his local printer or reviewed on his computer screen, what is the use ofthe system?An EDMS is however much more than a document management system, its strength lies inthe management of structures, known at CERN as product, work or assembly breakdown structures,describing the equipment being built.  These structures and the engineering data, that is linked to them,will describe the Collider and the experiments throughout their life-cycles, from an as-designedstructure to as-built and finally as-installed and operated. Traditional project management support can                                                       2 As a figure of merit: CDD manages 150.000+ drawings today- 3 –also be provided by extraction of bills-of-materials,  indications of design and fabrication progress, etc.How to describe such complex devices as the detectors and the Collider in structures suitable fordesign validation, procurement and manufacturing has been, and remains, one of our most hotlydiscussed topics.3. PROJECT DESCRIPTION3.1 Project objectiveThe objective of the EDMS project is:To provide access to the correct engineering data needed to design, build, install and operatethe LHC and the experiments during the life of the project.3.2 Project historyThe EDMS project was born as the physicists and engineers started to plan in detail how tobuild and assemble the large detectors of the LHC experiments, ATLAS and CMS.  The need for atool for managing engineering data, not only drawings, became clear.  The accelerator sector joined theEDMS Task Force [2] created to study solutions to this problem.  To avoid embarking blindly on animmediate full-scale adventure, three pilot projects were made using a commercial system, one in theaccelerator sector and one in each of the experiments.  Only after the pilots had been successfullycompleted was a large-scale deployment envisaged.  All information available from industry indicatedthat this was the correct way to introduce such a complex system in an existing engineeringorganisation. After the pilot projects the system CADIM/EDB from Eigner&Partner was selected.CERN and many of the collaborating institutes have complex computing environments, withPC:s, Macintoshes and various dialects of Unix happily mixed.  Providing support on a global scalefor such a mix of platforms is not realistic.  Fortunately the Java programming environment in Web-browsers evolved in time to provide a World Wide execution platform independent of the computersused.4. PROJECT ACTIVITIESThe CEDAR project is supported by the EST and IT divisions.  EST is responsible for end-user support and general use of CADIM/EDB while IT provides the computing infrastructure, databaseand CADIM/EDB system oriented support.  In addition to day-to-day support, a system as complex asthis does not operate as an autonomous black box, working groups have been created to analyse andpropose specific actions and solutions in the following domains:x EDMS architecturex CAD 2D and 3D model managementx Document handling and managementA dedicated working group for the quality assurance plan (QAP) of the Collider alsocollaborates closely with the CEDAR team.5. BASE PRACTICES AND PROCEDURESThe introduction of an EDM system requires a number of base practices to be put in placebefore a large community of sophisticated users are invited to used it.  Experience from the pilotprojects showed that no progress with the users could be expected if such practices are not firmly inplace and documented.  Two of the most important are conventions of item and document naming- 4 –schemes - the name of an item or a document must be coherent with the overall scheme and cannot beleft to the whim of a particular engineer.  Application of the conventions must be enforced to avoidanarchy.5.1 CADIM/EDBCADIM/EDB is an industrial EDMS.  Like most such systems it keeps information (meta-data) describing engineering data objects in a database - in our case Oracle.  Items are assembled intostructures that in turn may be linked into projects. Items are described by associated documents, whichmay contain texts, drawings and other engineering information.  The system provides interfaces toCAD tools and M/S Office; links to other databases may be created.  The complexity and the scale ofthe LHC project induced the vendor, who has twelve years experience in the area, to participate injoint projects with CERN in areas of common interest.5.2 TuoviWDMThe present Web interface to CADIM/EDB is TuoviWDM, developed by the HelsinkiInstitute of Physics in a technology transfer program at CERN.  TuoviWDM (for Web DataManagement) enables platform independent sharing of engineering documents on the Web. Using bothJava and HTML it can be programmed to access document databases, either commercial EDM systemsor in-house systems.  In our case it gives access to CADIM /EDB and CDD as well as to its own localdata-sets.6. INSTANCES OF THE EDMSCEDAR currently supports the Collider and three LHC experiments, below a shortdescription of the progress in each is given.  Reference [3] gives the URL of the CEDAR project andlinks to the instances described below.6.1 ALICEAlice has not yet entirely embraced CEDAR.  The collaboration members tried it out (only atotal of 70 text documents, drawings and other items were entered) and feel now that they have not theresources to bring a new system, which they judge not ready, into their workload.  They are at presentfully occupied with transforming and transferring 3D data files between the different Alice memberinstitutes but fully intend to come back to CEDAR, at a later stage.6.2 ATLASTuoviWDM has been used since summer 1997 to collect and approve documents for Atlas.The most active users have been in Technical Coordination, LAr, Magnet and Muon detector.  Parallelpilot projects using CADIM/EDB have been run in the Magnet, TRT and Tile calorimeter.  All Atlasprojects are at present migrating to CADIM/EDB, using Tuovi as a user interface.  Atlas draughtsmenin the CERN drawing offices are also using CDD to manage drawings.6.3 CMSCMS will use CEDAR to manage its engineering data more and more carefully. CDD isreplacing the old CADD file server.  A release procedure for all document types, compatible with whatCDD provides for drawing management, has been set up.  Users can access the up-to-date CMSparameter book directly from the TuoviWDM Web interface.  In parallel to the above activities, muchwork has been devoted to defining Product Breakdown Structures (PBS) for the different sub-projects.The set of all PBS's forms the coherent CMS Baseline: high level structures contain items that are the- 5 –starting point for smaller product structures. All these product structures may be linked together tomake a single big product structure.The CMS-CRISTAL project - an ambitious and painstaking process of growing manythousands of large crystals - starts production mid-1998.  The short term requirement to manage thecrystal production was stronger than participating completely in the CEDAR project.  But the work ofthe architecture group will ensure the compatibility between the CEDAR and the CRISTAL datamodels so that in the future the systems will be able to collaborate.6.4 LHCThe implementation of CEDAR in the Collider project reflects the needs of its managementteam that recognized early on that only strict control of the design data and documents could maintainthe consistency of the project.  Practically all drawings for the Collider are now under control, withcomplete life-cycle procedures implemented.  A LHC Baseline  has been established to make allreleased, officially approved, information available to all project collaborators including those outsideCERN3.  Documents and data under version control belong to the baseline, documents that describe thetechnical background, project reports and project notes do not. LHC project reports and notes, storedin the CERN library's document server, can be referenced and accessed from the EDMS too.Work group spaces allow documents in work and proposals to be exchanged betweenparticipants in various sub-system projects such as the main dipole group, the insertion magnetbuilders and others.  A clear distinction is made between documents in the work group space and inthe baseline space.7. THE FUTUREThe vision of an all encompassing EDMS that we had when embarking on the pilot projectsfor product selection remains valid but it has been tempered by cold reality.  Providing adequate accessto engineering data across the diverse and complex environment at CERN, not to mention severalhundred university institutions and national laboratories across the globe, requires a large number ofbasic procedures and work processes to be either defined or adapted.  The effort to define standards fordocuments and drawings, approbation and submission procedures was underestimated - as wasresistance to change.  Not every engineer, secretary, designer or physicist will let colleagues look atwork in progress nor provide a comprehensive documentation of work done.  Strong support from thetop management in both the Collider project and the two large experiments, ATLAS and CMS,coupled with the sheer impossibility of managing such large projects 'as usual' provide ample incentiveto continue.  The main effort in both the Collider and the experiments during the winter 1997 andspring 1998 was to establish base practices and design baselines.  This effort will continue during theremainder of 1998 until complete baselines for the Collider and experiments exist and can be put underconfiguration control.References[1] CERN-EST-96-004; CDD CERN Drawings Directory User's manual: Version 1.1 . by Delamare,C ; Fernandez, I ; Jeannin, F ; Petit, S; URL: http://wwwlhc01.cern.ch/cdd/[2] CERN-LHC-97-003-VAC; CERN EDMS study 96: progress report - second progress report ofthe Engineering Data Management System Task Force. 31 Jan 1997, by Dittus, F ; et al. (14 p) .1997[3] URL: http://edms.cern.ch/                                                       3 CEA and IN2P3 in France, BNL and FNAL in U.S are regular users.

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