THE OPERATION OF ACCELERATORS AS ENTRUSTED BUSINESS ANDOUR COMPANY’S FUTURE PLANS CONCERNING THIS TIE-UPY.Satoh and M.Tanaka
Mitsubishi Electric System & Service Co., Ltd
2-8-8 Umezono Tsukuba, Ibaraki 305-0045, JapanAbstract
Research Institutes have entrusted the operation oflarge-scale accelerators to private enterprise in Japan.
Research Institutes expect private enterprise to operate
and maintain accelerators in a stable condition.
With the use of highly advanced accelerators and thediversification of the research to which they are applied,operators of accelerators have come to be considered assupporters of research and are expected to understand theassociated highly advanced technologies.
In this paper, we are going to consider the present
operation of accelerators and discuss our company’s
future plans concerning this business tie-up.

2-1 Shifts
Perfectly controlled shifts are indispensable to stable
operation. Surplus operators have been placed at eachaccelerator to back up the shifts.
An operator takes charge of the same accelerator for
five or seven consecutive days and the shifts can beswitched with a minimum of operators. Thanks to thissystem, the operation is perfectly under control and anyproblems will be handled accurately.
Surplus operators are also placed to master theiroperating skills through on-the-job training based on atraining schedule. With using this shift system, we areable to ensure on-going compatibility of operator’s
training with stable operation.

1. INTRODUCTION
Our company started operating accelerators, the2.5GeV Linac and the 2.5GeV PF Storage Ring, in June
1986. We started this operation with ten operators andsince then have developed the Heavy Ion Accelerator,
the 8.0GeV Linac, the 8.0GeV PF Storage Ring, the6.5GeV PF Storage Ring and the Asymmetric Two-ring
Collider. The number of operators has now increased to
sixty and we have been making a contribution to theprogress of accelerator related researches.
For ten years following the start of this tie-up, we haveconducted the operation to maintain accelerators in astable condition with these three aims:
The first aim: Improving fundamental technical skills.
The second aim: Averaging operators’ technical skills.
The third aim: Attending to various problems swiftly.
These aims have enabled us to operate highly
advanced accelerators, and we have come to train
operators to have special technical skills and to be able tosupport research.

2.COMPATIBILITY OF OPERATOR’STRAINING WITH STABLEOPERATION
The main aim of this entrusted business is to maintainaccelerators in a stable condition. We also try to enable
compatibility of operator’s training with stableaccelerator operation.

2-2 Establishment of the Training System
The operation of accelerators includes a variety oftasks; safety control, beam adjustment, observing
equipment, drawing operation sheets, handling problems
and adjusting the time of incidence ray. Operators needto handle these tasks swiftly and accurately.
At the beginning of this operation, there were only a
few operators and only one instructor. Guidance
conducted by researchers of each accelerator used to beconsidered as the only information source and wemastered how to operate accelerators through on-the-job
training. Later, we came regard guidance conducted byresearchers as the basic training procedure and we haveconstructed our company’s own methods in mastering
the operation of accelerators.

(1) Mastering the basic procedure of operating
accelerators.
To master the operation of accelerators, operators needto understand the structures of an accelerators’
equipment and master how to handle each accelerator.
Inexperienced operators have to write a manual of eachcomponent through on-the-job training to understand thebasic technology. They also have to attend lectures thatare conducted external of our company for furtherunderstanding.
(2) Establishing the training system for operators.
A rigid training system is indispensable to training
excellent operators. We have established eachaccelerator’s technical standards, essential to operating
accelerators. Persons who have mastered these standards
are considered to be eligible as trainers and it is only
these experienced people who conduct operator training.
(3) Averaging operators’ technical skills.
Ten operators take charge of one accelerator based on
the accurate shift system. To enable stable operation,these ten operators need to have equivalent technicalskills. We have established a training system that enables
each operators’ technical skills to equalise. On-the-job
training of other accelerators and technical meetings arealso held to average operator’s technical skills andbroaden experience.
(4) Training operators to be able to handle problems
swiftly.
Operators need to understand a wide variety oftechnical skills concerning accelerators. We have trainedoperators by placing them in many fields of advanced
technology to master specialised technical skills. These
specially trained operators instruct other operators, andall operators can handle any problems swiftly andaccurately as a result.
(5) Attending researchers’ workshops.
Researchers have been kind enough to promote thetraining of operators by attendance of researchers’workshops. By attending these workshops, operators canunderstand the new technologies and reflect on what theylearn during daily operation.
We consider these five points, from (1) through to (5),as one cycle which we repeat. Using this cycle, enables
the safe operation of accelerators with the forefront oftechnology.

3.OPERATING ACCELERATORS AS
RESEARCH SUPPORTERS
With the appearance of more highly advanced
accelerators and a growing diversity of research,
operators have come to be considered as not just workers
who can handle accelerators, but also as research support
staff who can understand the forefront of technology.
We are going to explain our role of support in researchand our company’s future plans in this area.

3-1 Supporting research(1) Development of control software.
Operators have been developing control software.
They started from development of the simple and easyhandling GUI program and are now developing highly
advanced support programs.
(2) Improvement of beam adjustment technology.
With the diversity of experiments, incident ray
parameters have been increased and their adjustment has

become complicated. Operators need to be well trained.
As for collision type accelerators, the status of beams
will always be changed. To enable stable experiments,
operators are expected to adjust the beams around thecollision point. We try to improve operators’ adjustment
technical skills and we are also developing the tools thatcan control beams in a stable manner.
(3) Design and measurement technology.
We are involved with the design and construction of a
new beam line for the PF Storage Ring.
(4) Supporting research.
As for supplemental experiments related to the beamline, we support researchers’ analysis…

3-2 Future plans
We have performed this business tie-up as describedin 3-1. Our company’s future plans are as follows:(1) Training systems engineers who can develop newprograms.
A variety of programs are used in operatingaccelerators. The numbers of systems engineers who candevelop control programs are few, while there is great
demand for control programs. We need to educate andtrain more systems engineers who can develop control
programs.
(2) Mastering beam inducement theory.
To enable stable operation and to support highlyadvanced experiments, we need to train engineers whocan not only understand operation, (adjustment, basic
technology and much operational experience) but to also
be able to propose new theory suitable to beamadjustment methods.
(3) Training designers and measurement engineers.
We need to understand the structures andspecifications of accelerators to enable generalmaintenance.
We need to raise special operators who can perform not
only maintenance of accelerators but also offer support
to researchers.

4.CONCLUSION
We cannot complete operator training over a shortperiod. As for surplus operators, we need to place themin addition to contracted operators. Since we are aprivate enterprise and we need to generate a profit,
sometimes it has been very difficult for us to continue
our policy.
But, by entrusting the operation of accelerators,
researchers can concentrate only on their research. As webelieve our mission is to support progress of research, wewill continue to train operators who have highly
advanced technical skills.

5.ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
We would like to express our sincere appreciation here
to Professor Kato and Professor Yoshioka of KEK for
their giving us the opportunity to put forward this paper.