The Center for Chemical Process Safety (CCPS) and European Process Safety Center (EPSC) jointly hosted the European Conference on Process Safety and Big Data at the DECHEMA-House in Frankfurt am Main, Germany.
This summer and fall, the Center for Chemical Process Safety (CCPS) has been busy organizing and attending events throughout the world and conducting process safety student boot camps and faculty workshops.
India Regional Technical Steering Committee Meeting
CCPS India regional technical steering committee meeting was hosted by Reliance Industries Ltd. in Mumbai on August 7, 2019. The meeting was attended by more than 140 delegates from 48 Indian companies. This meeting was one of the biggest ever gatherings of CCPS members and non-members in the region. Eight process safety professionals from different companies shared their PSM case studies and incident learnings.
The event was highly successful as the industry peers came together to encourage a shared-knowledge mindset after any incident, which helps create a safer and more sustainable operation. The session ended with a commitment from attending member companies to share more incident case studies from their organizations during the next CCPS TSC.
4th Annual Regional Calgary Canadian Technical Steering Committee Meeting
This year’s meeting hosted by Inter Pipeline, drew the largest attendance to date, with approximately 70 people from 36 companies representing both CCPS members and non-members.
For the first time this year, we had participation from a university (University of Alberta), and our agenda featured two panel sessions; one on safe operating windows, the other on corrective actions management. There was a tremendous amount of engagement at this meeting, including in-depth discussions, incident sharing, and networking opportunities.
2019 European Conference on Process Safety and Big Data
CCPS and European Process Safety Center (EPSC) jointly hosted the European Conference on Process Safety and Big Data at the DECHEMA-House in Frankfurt am Main, Germany. The fourth edition of this conference featured augmenting process safety performance through big data, digitalization, and robotics.
The conference drew 114 attendees from 62 organizations, including 22 CCPS member companies. The conference program was a full two days of seven sessions, two panel discussion, four keynote lectures, and 18 additional lectures.
5th PSM Workshop Organized by Worldsteel
CCPS executive director and CEO Shakeel Kadri delivered a master lecture at the 5th PSM Workshop organized by Worldsteel, and hosted by Ternium, on October 9, 2019 in Monterrey, Mexico. His topic was “Risk Management – Barriers and Degradation Factors.”
At the workshop, he focused on operational risk management learning and improvements in chemical and petroleum industries and how they can be applied to the steel industry. The attendees were from steel companies around the world.
Student boot camps
Four student boot camps were held around the country over the last few months. Student boot camps provide an introduction to engineering students on how leading companies across a variety of chemical process industry sectors manage process safety to prevent catastrophic accidents involving toxic, highly reactive, and flammable materials.
Learn more about the Undergraduate Process Safety Learning Initiative.
Faculty workshops
This summer, CCPS held five annual faculty workshops. As part of the AIChE Undergraduate Process Safety Learning Initiative (UPSLI) under the umbrella of the Doing a World of Good campaign, these free workshops are designed to illustrate to chemical engineering faculty how process safety is implemented in industry. The workshops are also meant to showcase the importance of process safety to the design and operation of a process plant.
The goal is to enable faculty to teach process safety in their undergraduate and graduate curricula so that the graduating students have a basic understanding of process safety prior to their careers in industry.
The sponsoring companies held their workshops at one of their facilities listed below:
- LyondellBasell Sponsored CCPS Faculty Workshop: January 6-9, 2019
- Dow Sponsored CCPS Faculty Workshop: June 10-13, 2019
- BASF Sponsored CCPS Faculty Workshop: July 22-25, 2019
- Bayer Sponsored CCPS Faculty Workshop: July 29 - August 1, 2019
- Chevron Sponsored CCPS Faculty Workshop: August 4-7, 2019
- ExxonMobil Sponsored CCPS Faculty Workshop: August 12-15, 2019
See how faculty members from around the world spent their summer focusing on safety.
Staff Updates
Vishal Chavan, Project Manager - Asia Pacific/Middle East Project Manager
Vishal comes to CCPS with over 16 years of experience in consulting, training, auditing, and project management in QEHS management systems, where he brings a rich and varied experience in project management, client engagement, and new product development.
Vishal began his career as a chemical engineer in a distillery and evolved into positions including an operations manager for training and improvement services at Lloyd’s Register. Working in both small-scale private organizations and large multi-national companies, Vishal has a vast understanding of business processes in a multi-cultural and diverse work environment.
In previous roles, Vishal conducted workshops at the national and international level in the field of EHS, process safety, and responsible care. He is also a seasoned management system auditor with over 500 third-party audit experiences.
In his free time, Vishal enjoys exploring his hobby of landscape and abstract photography.
Gary Amideneau, Lead Process Safety Engineer
Gary joined CCPS in July 2019 after a 17-year career in Loss Prevention Engineering at Saudi Aramco, where he worked in various areas, including offshore production, drilling, refining, gas plant processing, and terminal marine facilities.
His background includes conducting comprehensive safety/process safety audits, working at fixed facilities and offshore platforms, in a site and corporate capacity. Gary has a BS in Chemical Engineering from the University of California at Santa Barbara and has been working in process safety since 1992 when the OSHA and EPA regulations were first published in the US.
In his 40+ years of experience, Gary has worked in specialty chemicals and petrochemicals in every facet of process safety and loss prevention.