2011 Preliminary Full Conference Program

These workshops will be held the day before ChemInnovations begins and require an additional fee. Lunch is included in the registration fee of full day workshops.

You can join other Young Automation Professionals at YAPFEST - ISA Houston Section, or network with your peers while on the tour or celebrating the top plants at the Chemical Engineering Awards reception.

The keynote sessions are designed to bring you important information delivered by industry experts that affect the chemical and petrochemical process industries. Tuesday’s keynote speaker will focus on the changing oil and natural gas supply from Shale Oil and its impact on oil prices, NGL availability, refinery operations and ultimately chemical production in the U.S. Wednesday keynote will feature two speakers. The first will explore some of today’s issues and benefits, approaches to solving those issues, and proposes new benefit areas that will be enabled by modern automation architectures. The second will focus on the ever evolving “Industrial Control Systems Security” landscape and how Department of Homeland Security is supporting the chemical sector.

Going beyond the technical aspects of the CPI, this track addresses the more high-level subjects and key variables that encompass the modern-day CPI. These include: The academic and corporate dynamics for transitioning from academia to industry, an assessment of two important regulatory issues (Boiler MACT and the upcoming Information Collection Request), the importance of protecting intellectual property and engineering ethics, all in all addressed in an effort to define the building blocks and driving forces necessary to satisfy the global energy outlook.

This track focuses on unique approaches and technologies that offer improvements in the areas of process design, optimization, and control system cyber-security. Attendees will learn innovative approaches to use in their everyday careers.

This track will provide guidance on critical issues for the chemical and petrochemical process industries such as reducing air emissions, optimizing water resources and finding cost effective environment solutions. Guidance will also be provided on how to analyze the risk in process and manufacturing industries and implementation of safety systems to prevent/mitigate the risk. Techniques to maintain the reliability of such safety systems will also be addressed. Participants can expect to learn practical strategies to protect the environment.

This track will focus on energy efficiency and alternative sources of energy for use in the CPI and petrochemical industries.

Equipment failures hit plants in the two places where it hurts the most: safety and profitability. Therefore, in the efforts of heading off failures, a lot of progress is being forged in the areas of proactive maintenance and reliability programs. This track outlines the economic case for proactive maintenance and reliability programs and illustrates the hands on benefits in various applications.

Methods for controlling industrial processes automatically in chemical and petrochemical industries continue to have visibility at all engineering levels. As new technologies emerge in automation, the industry continues to invest more money and time in research and innovation. This track will highlight the most innovative areas in process automation, including fieldbus, SCADA, gas analysis, and manufacturing.

Based on Chemical Engineering’s popular Chementator section ChemInnovations will include the Chementator Lightning Round. These consist of live interviews hosted by Chemical Engineering editors. The interviews identify the unique benefits of newly proven technologies or approaches that can achieve breakthroughs for chemical and petrochemical process industry applications. The interviewees have 10 minutes to answer questions such as: how the new process or technology works, how it differs from traditional methods, how the economics or other benefits compare quantitatively, and many more. Interviews will be held on the exhibit showfloor.