Pictured above: On Wednesday, January 29, 2020 Shakeel H. Kadri, Executive Director & CEO of AIChE's Center for Chemical Process Safety (CCPS)®, testified before the Senate Committee on Environment & Public Works on the mission and role of the Chemical Safety Board (CSB).
COVID-19 relief effort
Our partners in industry and academia are making a difference in the COVID-19 relief effort — altering their manufacturing facilities to produce personal protective equipment; accelerating vaccine research; donating money and PPE, and more.
Read stories from CCPS member companies.
2020 AIChE Spring Meeting & 16th GCPS now virtual
The decision has been made to deliver the 2020 AIChE Spring Meeting and 16th Global Congress on Process Safety virtually. The meeting — which had been rescheduled to August 16–20 in Houston, TX — will now be available online from Monday, August 17 through Friday, August 21. We will still provide our virtual attendees with inspiring and thought-provoking keynote speakers, present papers, publish proceedings and network! Register today.
Workshop series on hazard identification and risk assessment
CCPS is offering a workshop series on hazard identification and risk assessment (HIRA) through July 22, 2020. Registration is free for CCPS members & EPSC members. A nominal fee will be charged for others. The workshop series will be 10 events, of two hours each. Watch your email for additional details on registration. The series follows the steps in performing a HIRA study with an emphasis on the use of simplified quantitative techniques.
These simplified quantitative methods will help evaluation teams to prioritize their efforts, improve analysis consistency among teams, and allow better informed process safety decisions. Each two-hour session consists of two topics (two 40-45 minute presentations) with time for questions. Worked example problems will be shared in addition to references providing additional topic information. Participants will also receive one hour of professional development credit per hour of course work. All sessions will be recorded.
Asia Pacific & Middle East regional updates
CCPS South East Asia Regional Members Meeting
The CCPS South East Asia Regional Members Meeting was held virtually on May 13, 2020 (hosted by Petronas). In light of the recent concerns of the coronavirus (COVID-19), CCPS decided to cancel the scheduled face-to-face CCPS South East Asia Pacific Regional TSC Meeting, which would have been held in August 2020 at the Petronas Head Office.
Virtual meeting held with Tata Steel, India
On April 2, 2020, a virtual engagement workshop was conducted for two hours with Tata Steel employees by Mr. Umesh Dhake, Regional Manager, Asia Pacific and Middle East regions. The topic of the workshop was CCPS RAST (Risk Analysis Screening Tool). A total of 155 employees participated from various locations of Tata Steel.
Following this session, the TSC representative for Tata Steel, Mr. Ramesh Kumar, stated by email that “The workshop was very informative, content was relevant and well presented. It gave us a chance to put RAST into practice for ongoing process safety activity at Tata Steel Ltd.”
Tata Steel now wants to further explore and consider the RAST approach for hazard evaluations and risk assessments to improve process safety performance. Going forward, Tata Steel is looking for a similar workshop on various topics coming under the scope of CCPS.
Europe regional updates
2020 CCPS Europe Regional Meeting on Process Safety
Due to COVID-19, the face-to-face meeting originally scheduled at the HQ of our European member, Syngenta, in Basel, Switzerland, was quickly changed to a 2½-hour virtual meeting.
With the support from our host, Nigel Atkinson (Syngenta), four speakers, Shakeel Kadri (CCPS Executive Director and CEO), and the European CCPS staff, an interesting and well-received meeting was planned, and drew 30 participants from both member and nonmember companies. Shakeel Kadri reported on CCPS 2019 events and gave an outlook on the upcoming CCPS 2020 global activities.
2020 Conference on Process Safety and Big Data
This event, in its fifth year, will be held at the DECHEMA-House in Frankfurt am Main, Germany. For more information on this event or to submit an abstract, please visit our website or contact Horst Massong.
Latin America regional updates
Latin America virtual meeting
In response to COVID-19 and the postponement of the 16th GCPS, the Latin America region hosted a virtual meeting on March 31, 2020. There were 30 process safety engineering professionals in attendance, including 16 member companies and 14 nonmember companies.
Topics discussed were:
- CCPS activities in Brazil, Colombia, and Argentina;
- University student engagement in process safety in Brazil;
- Latin American Conference on Process Safety
Upcoming events for the Latin America region
The next virtual meeting for the region will be held June 8. The meeting will focus on process safety topics and an introduction of new projects.
- June 5 meeting with Latin American Association of AIChE Chapters in which CCPS programs would be applicable to College Students.
- June 12 virtual webinar on benefits of process safety management (PSM) Programs in the oil and energy generation industries.
- Virtual discussion panel in July/August 2020, about non-manufacturing areas applicability of RBPS.
- October 27 virtual mini-conference in which publications originally presented during the Latin American Conference on Process Safety 2020 (LACPS) will be presented.