Quality management for Wendelstein 7-X - Lessons learned

The WENDELSTEIN 7-X stellarator is the next step device in the stellarator line of IPP Garching. It is being assembled in the branch institute of IPP at Greifswald. Start of plasma operation is scheduled for 2014. The WENDELSTEIN 7-X project is presently the largest scientific project in Germany. From the start of the planning up to the end of operation, the time span for this project will be almost 50 years. With the start of the construction phase of W7-X in 1996 a quality management system was established which is orientated on ISO 9001 and is used for design, procurement and assembly. With this quality management system now 10 years of experience have been gathered, which are described in this paper.