The American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE) and its Center for Chemical Process Safety (CCPS) brought the expertise of the chemical process safety community to engineers across the Americas at the organizations’ seventh CCPS Latin American Conference on Process Safety. The meeting took place August 22–23, 2016, in Lima, Peru, and drew more than 200 delegates representing 60 companies and 16 nations, including many countries in Central and South America.
The CCPS Latin American Conference on Process Safety is just one event in a portfolio of annual and international conferences organized by AIChE and CCPS for the benefit of chemical engineers, academic researchers, and business leaders interested in developing safe industrial processes and instilling a culture of safe practices in the chemical, petrochemical, and allied industries.
The CCPS Latin American Conference featured more than 40 technical presentations and a variety of keynote speakers who addressed the many aspects of risk based process safety, which emphasizes the understanding and management of hazards and risks. Presentations were tailored to the unique technical concerns and challenges faced by engineers and their employers in Latin America’s chemical and petrochemical facilities, and centered on the importance of implementing process safety standards and process safety management systems within the region’s industries. A related area of discussion focused on the need to implement process safety instruction into the curricula of engineering universities. The meeting’s sessions were presented in Spanish and English, with simultaneous translations provided.
Louisa A. Nara, Technical Director of CCPS, set the stage for the conference with her opening remarks, and also delivered a keynote speech that presented examples of “process safety in action.” Additional keynote speakers included Guy R. Colonna, Division Director of the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA; Quincy, Massachusetts), who described lessons learned from case studies investigated by NFPA; and Julio Salazar, General Manager of the Peruvian regulatory agency Organismo Supervisor de la Inversión en Energía y Mineria (Osinergmin), who surveyed process safety progress in Peru.
Information about the Center for Chemical Process Safety’s upcoming conferences and other programs is available at www.aiche.org/ccps/.
About CCPS
CCPS is a not-for-profit corporate membership organization within AIChE, with over 180 members, that identifies and addresses process safety needs in the chemical, pharmaceutical and petroleum industries. CCPS brings together manufacturers, government agencies, consultants, academics and insurers to lead the way in improving process safety. Members, working in project subcommittees, define and develop useful, time-tested guidelines that have practical applications that run the gamut from human factors to qualitative and quantitative risk analysis to security vulnerability to inherently safety design. With more than 100 publications, CCPS is at the forefront of efforts to improve process safety performance. Read more about CCPS at www.aiche.org/ccps.
About AIChE
AIChE is a professional society of 53,000 chemical engineers in 110 countries. Its members work in corporations, universities and government using their knowledge of chemical processes to develop safe and useful products for the benefit of society. Through its varied programs, AIChE continues to be a focal point for information exchange on the frontiers of chemical engineering research in such areas as energy, sustainability, biological and environmental engineering, nanotechnology and chemical plant safety and security. More information about AIChE is available at www.aiche.org.