Trends in Field Quality along the Production of the LHC Dipoles and Differences among Manufacturers

More than two thirds of the dipoles of the Large Hadron Collider have been manufactured and their magnetic field has been measured at room temperature. In this paper we make a review of the trends that have been observed during the production. In some cases, the trends were traced back to displacements of conductors with respect to the nominal lay-out. The analysis allows detecting the most critical zones in the superconducting coil as far as field quality is concerned. The second part of the paper makes the point of the observed differences in field quality between the three manufacturers. The analysis allows evaluating which multipoles are more affected, what magnitudes of displacements are necessary to explain these differences (the manufacturers all producing the same baseline), and what could be the origin of such differences.