New Challenges Highlighted at PROCESS 2005

Stringent regulatory requirements, pricing pressures, ever-increasing energy costs and the need for enhanced environmental stewardship can impose tough demands on the Process Industries. And at the same time, plant managers constantly have to look for ways to reduce their operating costs.

Owner/operator priorities have shifted dramatically. As challenging economic times and sector-specific woes buffet the Process Industries sector, cutting costs has become the number one priority of almost everyone in the industry. Some, principally in the oil and gas sector, continue to invest in big projects, but most are cutting costs by upgrading or optimizing existing facilities, especially where there is an opportunity to get quick returns for a relatively small up-front investment. Re-engineering engineering, that is to say restructuring engineering departments, has also started to take hold. The engineering function at owner/operators is in transition with many new lessons to be learned and new pitfalls to avoid. Meanwhile, with spending on new construction and major revamps down, EPCs are taking another look at their tenders and seeking work elsewhere.

PROCESS 2005, taking place on February 16-18, 2005 at the Bologna Exhibition Centre, Italy, will address these challenges and more. The exhibition and conference will be a unique international forum for learning from top executives at the world’s leading owner/operators and engineering-procurement-construction (EPC) firms, from strategies for plant design, engineering and construction, to optimal operations and maintenance. Strategies for improving operational and maintenance efficiency through better decision-making during design and construction, are also coming to the fore, underpinned by new methods of speeding the flow of data and information all the way from conceptual and detail design through construction, operations and maintenance.

PROCESS 2005 is the only exhibition in Italy with an international flavour completely focused on Engineering, Technology and Management in the process industries. As the premier event in the pan-Mediterranean region targeted specifically at management, technical and operations personnel in the global process industry, more key buyers/specifiers attend to gather important information on new and better ways to design, build, manage, operate and maintain process industry plants than at any other event. This is where industry leaders, trend-setters and innovators come in order to network, renewing their resolve to confront the coming year’s challenges. And this is where vendors with something new and exciting show their wares and share their vision.