The first meeting of the ILO (Industrial Liaison Officers) Network kicked off on Tuesday 18 November in Barcelona bringing together 57 participants from different European countries under the guidance of Philippe Corréa, Head of Procurement and Contracts Department of F4E. The meeting proved to be an opportunity to discuss the progress of the ITER project, present a series of communication initiatives and clarify the rules regarding procurement and contracts.
Maurizio Gasparotto, Chief Engineer of ITER Department, presented the progress of the ITER project and offered an overview of the 85 procurement packages that are defined and distributed across the seven parties. He presented a state of play of the different ongoing procurement procedures and presented a roadmap for those planned ahead in 2009.
Stavros Chatzipanagiotou, Head of Resources and Communication, expressed the need for consistent coordination between F4E and ILOs so as to build on their communication potential and target different target groups effectively. A list of communication initiatives was presented together with new platforms that would facilitate access to information and updates between both parties.
Philippe Corréa, Head of Procurement and Contracts, presented the three underpinning principles of F4E’s procurement strategy: flexibility in framing the procurement packages, creativity in drafting the Call for Tenders and reactivity to promptly face technical challenges and respond to them in a timely manner. Europe’s participation in almost all 85 ITER procurement packages, will offer its industry the necessary stimulus to become both proactive and competitive. According to Philippe Corréa, ‘ITER is not a one off technological challenge. On the contrary, this is a process that will make different European suppliers engage with one another with a long term investment in the horizon. Industry should start feeling ownership of this experiment and behave beyond the dynamics of supplier- client relationship’.
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