Nobu Toge

As the Baseline Configuration Document (BCD) becomes semi-stabilized, the canonical mission of the Change Control Board (CCB) is to act as a body to make decisions on important changes to the baseline configuration, if and when necessary. Nobu Toge is assigned to chair this board.

"The most important element is to ensure the transparency and equitability of this process on top of technical soundness, so that all affected parties can act in good synchronization.", said Toge. "The CCB members are currently drafting the 'official procedures' to follow in these Change Control processes. We will be consulting with Barry, the Executive Committee and chairs of the two sister boards, the R&D Board and the Design Cost Board. The current goal is to come up with this 'procedure' by the time of Bangalore meeting."

The Change Configuration Board consists of nine members from all three regions involved with the ILC: Carlo Pagani, Graham Blair, Daniel Schulte, Tom Markiewicz, Shekhar Mishra, Warren Funk, Kiyoshi Kubo, Masao Kuriki and Nobu Toge (chair).

Making too many configuration changes too often may hinder the R&D and engineering efforts. At the same time, important change decisions may not be deferred too long.

"I note that we have only a limited amount of time towards completing the Reference Design Report (RDR). The time would fly like an arrow. I suspect that some 'planning ahead', if not a totally rigorous one, might be worth. That is, to try to anticipate what sort of major change proposals might be brought to the table in what sort of time scales, so that people can roughly mark up the calendars beforehand.", Toge said.

The CCB is required to stay in very close touch with the RDB, DCB and other groups and committees. "This is good, since we need to institutionalize very thick communication channels among ourselves. If so, the goal ought to be that we establish and maintain this communication in ways that everyone in and outside GDE can monitor what are being talked about and what are being identified as, for instance, monthly burning questions and so on.", Toge said.

The BCD is an impressive compilation of hard work that several colleaques contributed to since the Snowmass workshop in summer 2005. However, as pointed out by many, there is substantial room for improvements in terms of completeness, consistency and accuracy. "So I assume that one of the immediate goals for the entire GDE is to bring the BCD into an as good as possible shape towards the Bangalore meeting, and one of the tasks of CCB is to facilitate that process.", Toge said.

According to Toge, the CCB will not author the BCD by itself. Writing is a job that has been assigned to the Area Groups, Global Groups or Technical System Groups working with them, under the leadership of the Executive Committee. But as the guardian of BCD, the CCB members have to clearly understand what is in there. "We will read the draft just as carefully as any authors. Many CCB members have dual citizenship with other groups, too. So I believe there are chances for the members of CCB to say or propose something useful individually or collectively.", Toge said.

The CCB is currently soliciting and compiling inputs for improving the contents of the BCD and completing it by the Bangalore meeting. "It is the intention of CCB, me included, to make the exchanges of these ideas and opinions as openly as possible, and bring them to the attention of the BCD authors.", Toge said.

For more information about the BCD and CCB, visit the following web pages:
http://www.linearcollider.org/wiki/doku.php?id=bcd:bcd_home
http://www.linearcollider.org/wiki/doku.php?id=bcd:postfrascaticomments

--Youhei Morita