Kuttig Electronic receives the CMS Gold Award 2018 at CERN
On Monday, December 3rd, 2018, Kuttig Electronic GmbH was awarded the CMS Gold Industry Award. The extraordinary award ceremony was held as part of the CMS Collaborative Meeting of the research center CERN, the European Organization of Nuclear Research. Managing Director Dipl-Ing. Michael Kuttig had travelled to the ceremony and accepted the award “for the fast and faultless production of 1200 replacement DC-DC converters for the pixel detector during the technical stop at the turn of the year 2017/18”.
It is not a usual day at CERN close to Geneva. The shutdown of the research center just started – the CMS detector (Compact Muon Solenoid) recorded the last particle collisions just the day before – the two-year maintenance phase begins. Euphoric atmosphere from many successful experiments lies in the air. A very successful three-year LHC run phase (Run 2) has been completed.
In retrospect, 2018 was the most successful year for CMS to date. Never before so many proton-proton collisions have been recorded with an unprecedented efficiency of 94% within a year. The EMS service provider Kuttig Electronic contributed significantly to this success. Due to this occasion, the responsible ones decided on an extraordinary award ceremony of the CMS Gold Industry Award 2018.
With the CMS Gold Award, the CMS Collaboration honors those industrial companies that have made outstanding contributions to the construction of the experiment. Companies that have demonstrated their excellence and their commitment and have delivered parts within the specification and on time are taken into consideration for this award.
Prof. Roberto Calin, head of the CMS experiment and Dr. Austin Ball, technical coordinator, personally presented the CMS Gold Industry Award during the collaboration meeting to Dipl.-Ing. Michael Kuttig, managing director of Kuttig Electronic. Kuttig Electronic was exceptionally rewarded with the industry award for the successful new production of 1200 DC-DC converters for the pixel detector during the technical stop at the turn of the year 2017/18 (YETS – Year-End-Technical-Stop).
Previously, approximately 5% of the DC-DC converters for the pixel detector had failed in the last three months of the operation period in 2017. The flawless functioning of the pixel detector is of great importance for the CMS detector. The required high precision management of the particle tracks at the collision point is only possible with the CMS detector.
Under the direction of Prof. Dr. Lutz Feld from the 1st physical institute B of RWTH Aachen University, the cause of failure was searched jointly with Kuttig Electronic. Through the electronic production of the assemblies according to IPC-A-610 quality class 3, many parameters of the production were recorded and could thus be evaluated. Consequently, a production-related failure could be excluded. In the meantime, the failures were attributed to a malfunction in a chip in use.
Due to the very small period of maintenance of the YETS, which was coming closer, the new production of all DC-DC converters installed in the CMS pixel detector was commissioned in November 2017.
This meant for Kuttig Electronic to realize the procurement of circuit boards and components as well as the assembly of circuit boards in a short timespan with a hard delivery date. The supply chains had to work despite a general scarcity of components and high quality had to be ensured.
Due to the above-average commitment of Kuttig Electronics employees, the company mastered this challenge and met the given time schedule. Thus, the CMS experiment could be started as planned after the YETS. Furthermore, it could be operated until December 2018 without any further failures.
„We are proud that we have mastered this challenge. The presentation of the CMS Gold Award is a great motivation for the whole team.“
Dipl.-Ing. Michael Kuttig