40th Center for Chemical Process Safety (CCPS) International Conference
The Center for Chemical Process Safety (CCPS) International Conference is one of five parallel sessions that comprise the Global Congress on Process Safety (GCPS). The CCPS Conference promotes process safety by identifying emerging process safety issues and advancing leading process safety management practices. It is dedicated to managing process safety systematically, locally, regionally, and internationally.
Conference Registration will be open soon!
Encouraged topics for this conference include, but are not limited to:
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What Hazard? Successful Approaches to Inherently Safer Design
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Building Process Safety Culture Through Influential and Inspirational Leadership
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Know Thine Hazards and Know Yourself: The Art of Hazard Identification and Risk Analysis
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Understanding Human Performance to Reduce Process Safety Risk
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Continuous Improvement with RAGAGEP - Managing Changing Standards and Best Practices
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Effective Management Systems Approaches to Combustible Dust Hazards
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Advances and Innovations to Drive Highly Effective Asset Integrity Programs
CCPS Chair and Vice Chair:
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Lauren Moyer and Brenton Cox, CCPS_chair@aiche.org
Session Topic Descriptions:
Emerging Technologies in Process Safety Management
This track is focused on development, implementation, management, and application of emerging technologies to identify and mitigate Process Safety risks. One of these emerging technologies is the use of drones for field inspection and asset monitoring to avoid putting workers at risk. Technology solutions involving data integration and analysis are used to assess operational risks and to drive innovative reliability and asset management programs. The introduction of artificial intelligence and machine learning applications to assist in the work conducted by the Process Safety practitioners is also an emerging trend. As these technologies become established, there will be opportunities to improve Process Safety performance, increase the efficiency, effectiveness, and consistency of the work performed by Process Safety practitioners, and in general improve the reliability of Process Safety barriers. Often when catastrophic events occur, the investigations reveal deficiencies in the related management systems and/or individuals being unnecessarily put at risk, and these emerging technologies have the potential to address these deficiencies quickly and drive the next step change in Process Safety performance. With any new technology, there can also be unintended consequences or new risks introduced to an organization that must be considered and addressed. This session seeks papers that explore the new possibilities of technology in process safety management and how these can successfully be deployed in the process industries.
What Hazard? Successful Approaches to Inherently Safer Design
The tool at the top of the Hierarchy of Controls in reducing process safety risk is Inherently Safer Design (ISD) practices. It is easy to understand the principles of ISD (Minimization, Substitution, Moderation and Simplification) but can be challenging to apply them, especially to existing facilities. This session welcomes papers that share approaches that have been developed and implemented to systematically evaluate the opportunities for ISD and to holistically incorporate ISD principles into an organization’s process safety management practices. Preference will be given to those papers that can support their approach with actual examples of the ISD principles being implemented in new or existing facilities. The audience would also have an interest in learning of what approaches are planned to comply with the US EPA Risk Management Program Safer Technologies and Alternatives Analysis (STAA) or other similar regulatory requirements globally.
Building Process Safety Culture Through Influential and Inspirational Leadership
Many times, people think of leadership in the traditional sense of organizational and hierarchical leaders. However, process safety professionals have an obligation to inspire and influence people to do the “right thing” when it comes to process safety. Additionally, how is process safety leadership developed in newer employees as experienced leaders leave the workforce in “the great shift change”? This session solicits papers that describe approaches to developing and demonstrating influential and inspirational leadership that drive teams to excellence in process safety, ranging from the individual facility level to the board room. Preference will be given to papers that can connect these leadership programs to demonstrated improvements and/or sustained excellence in process safety indicators.
Know Thine Hazards and Know Yourself: The Art of Hazard Identification and Risk Analysis
In “The Art of War” Sun Tzu discusses the importance of understanding your adversary and your own capabilities as key features in developing successful military strategy. This wisdom is often extended beyond military settings where understanding the strengths and weaknesses of both sides of an issue can help provide valuable insights. In the parlance of process safety, Understand Hazards and Risk is one of the four pillars in CCPS’s Risk Based Process Safety framework. This session seeks papers that address understanding and analyzing the strengths and weaknesses of process hazard identification and risk analysis. Relevant topics include best practices or sharing of key lessons learned in process hazard analysis techniques (PHA, QRA, HAZOP, LOPA), and process hazard knowledge management.
Understanding Human Performance to Reduce Process Safety Risk
Humans make mistakes every day – it is in our nature. How do we learn from errors, understand behaviors, and design facilities and systems to minimize errors and their potential impact on process safety risk? Human performance permeates all aspects of risk based process safety, from operating procedures and conduct of operations to design and risk assessment decisions to process safety culture and leadership. This session is seeking papers which explore effective and emerging approaches to minimizing human error in the process industries, from design to decommissioning, and across all job functions. Preference will be given to submissions that translate human factors principles to practical application and share real-life implementation success stories of developing these systems and processes.
Continuous Improvement with RAGAGEP - Managing Changing Standards and Best Practices
Recognized and Generally Accepted Good Engineering Practices (RAGAGEP) are one of the cornerstone elements to ensure that our process systems are designed, operated, and maintained in accordance with the latest and best industry practices. RAGAGEP is not only a tool to demonstrate compliance with the requirements of the Process Safety Information and Mechanical Integrity process safety management elements, but it is also a valuable tool for us to better understand the changing code requirements to ensure that our process safety risks are managed appropriately. Effective processes around understanding which RAGAGEPs apply to our facilities and documenting that our system meets these requirements are crucial in process safety management. This session invites new methodologies and best practices for identifying, documenting, and managing a RAGAGEP program at a facility and strategies for keeping up with and evaluating changes in standards and determining when to apply new requirements to existing facilities. Of particular interest are recommendations and best practices for meeting the US Environmental Protection Agency’s Risk Management Program (RMP) requirements for process plants around RAGAGEP compliance with the 2024 rule additions.
Prospective authors: Consider if your paper is best aligned to the CCPS “Continuous Improvement with RAGAGEP - Managing Changing Standards and Best Practices” session, the PPSS “Recognized and Generally Accepted Good Engineering Practices (RAGAGEP) Analysis in New Risk Management Plan (RMP) Rule” session, or the PSM2 RAGAGEP “Interpretation and Implementation” session, and submit your abstract accordingly.
Effective Process Safety Management Programs
Effective process safety management programs need to have a foundation of a strong safety culture, committed leadership, properly designed and integrated management systems, and operational discipline in following program requirements. Topical papers about developing needs, best practices, new or improved approaches or methodologies, interesting applications, key learnings or trends, or specific examples of successes or actions in progress related to implementing and sustaining effective process safety programs are encouraged.
Process Safety in a Climate-Friendly Future World
With many saying a climate catastrophe is in the world’s future, new ideas to slow down the pace of climate change have been introduced and developed. Some of these include carbon capture, carbon storage/sequestration, lithium-ion battery manufacturing and usage, hydrogen generation, blue (insert chemical here), green (insert chemical here), Power-to-X (P2X), and bio-based materials or energy. With these new processes will come process safety needs. Will they be classical needs? Or will they be different in some way? Many of the responses will initially involve small startup companies operating without support from a corporate process safety management (PSM) organization. Often these companies will have many of the typical PSM hazards and risks. Implementing PSM at these sites is and has been a challenge that will continue to grow in the near future. This session is seeking papers to link new technologies in a climate-friendly future world to the need for process safety concepts and techniques. Will process safety professionals be forced to adjust? Or are they right sized for the global future?
One of the four foundational pillars in the Risk Based Process Safety structure is Learning from Experience. A thorough investigation of all serious incidents and near misses to determine systemic key factors and root causes can lead to continuous improvements in process safety. This session solicits papers that describe approaches to establish or improve management systems for Learning from Experience, including effective methods of Incident Investigations (both internal and external), sharing learnings across organizations and industries, identifying and investigating near misses, gaining insight from Measurements and Metrics, and implementing lessons learned from Auditing.
Effective Management Systems Approaches to Combustible Dust Hazards
Combustible dusts are finely divided particulate solids that can fuel a flash-fire or explosion when suspended in air. These materials may exist as raw materials, intermediates, final products, and/or waste across many industries. There are common considerations between combustible dusts and flammable gases and liquids, but there are also distinctions. This session seeks abstracts that describe management system approaches to the control and mitigation of combustible dust hazards, including lessons learned from the implementation of these approaches, and a discussion of the similarities and differences when compared to the management of other sources of fire and explosion risk. For example, in what ways may combustible dusts be integrated into a broader Risk-Based Process Safety framework, and in what ways might it need to be addressed separately to ensure compliance with regulations and recognized and generally accepted good engineering practices (RAGAGEPs)?
Prospective authors: Consider if your paper is best aligned to the CCPS “Effective Management Systems Approaches to Combustible Dust Hazards” session or the LPS “Combustible Dusts: Avoiding Disasters” session and submit your abstract accordingly.
Advances and Innovations to Drive Highly Effective Asset Integrity Programs
A reliable chemical plant is safe, profitable, and environmentally responsible. Reliable plants have higher capacity utilization and experience fewer process upsets and loss of primary containment (LOPC) events. Asset integrity management is fundamental to both reliability improvement and process safety management for process plants. An effective asset integrity management system should include effective condition monitoring programs for a variety of equipment and instrumentation classes and a robust management system involving all asset stakeholders to ensure effective communication of metrics and timely resolution of findings. Furthermore, process plants face challenges with managing asset integrity of aging infrastructure. Robust asset integrity programs must be able to handle these challenges as plant assets and related safety systems age. This session seeks papers that describe new methodologies, best practices, evaluation techniques, and case studies on all aspects of an asset integrity management program. Particular interests include innovations in inspection, testing, and maintenance methods for plant assets, methodological advances in developing and implementing facility wide reliability best practices, ensuring an effective metrics and management review system, and how these innovations can be used to advance process safety excellence for facilities.
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GCPS Joint Session: Case Histories
Reviews of process safety incidents provide valuable learning opportunities. This session invites papers to help understand the causes and lessons learned from incidents in the industry with an emphasis on events that have helped define and develop the process safety field over the years.
