SAFEX Congress XX, Salzburg, Austria

After three false starts the 20th SAFEX Congress was held at the Salzburg Congress Centre and what a success it was.The Congress and preceding events were attended by 180 delegates from 50 countries.

Delegates to SAFEX Congress

The pre-Congress programme was fully subscribed and the BoS two-day training session was met with enthusiasm and interactive participation. Five Work Group sessions were held on the Wednesday covering a wide range of integral safety subjects including Explosives Transport, ESD, Remediation, Primaries and PETN.

The ESD team will update the current ESD GPG and also generate an eLearning module on the subject.

Training Session Participation

The Board of Governors broke away for a strategy session facilitated by Parthenon E&Y. The outcome of the strategy session was presented to 9 CEOs who were very supportive of the objectives identified at the strategy session.

CEO’s with Salzburg Manifesto in Background

The CEOs committed to a document, the Salzburg Manifesto, developed during the session and undertook to support SAFEX within their companies:

The Salzburg Manifesto will be formally signed by all the CEOs that attended the session to affirm their personal commitment to safety and their support for the role of SAFEX.

The two days of plenary sessions saw 28 papers being presented by 16 Companies. All the papers were rated by attendees as high quality and are available on the SAFEX Website. One of the papers presented – an incident at the Enaex Rio Loa plant - will be used as the basis for the next e-learning module on Management of Change.

Incident Reporting By Jari Henriksson, Forcit

Plenary Session

It was very encouraging to see the very high degree of open sharing of safety related issues and topics during the Training, the Workgroup and the Plenary Sessions. This is what SAFEX is all about and we thank all of those involved – not just the presenters but also those asking questions and taking part in debates.

Social events were not neglected and the welcome reception and Gala Dinner at the Stiegl Keller was well attended.

Stiegl Keller

and enjoyed by all the delegates. Excursions were organised for the spouses to the Altstadt and

Hellbrunn Castle

Mozart’s Birth Place

Hellbun Castle as well as the Mozart birthplace whilst the Congress was closed with a day long excursion to St Wolfgang See and the Halstadt salt mine.

St Wolfgang See

Hallstatt

The Salzburg Congress was one of the most successful yet with excellent attendance, papers and programmes. A highlight was the support of the CEOs who took time out of their extremely busy schedules to attend and participate in the strategy feedback and develop the Salzburg Manifest to move SAFEX forward as a dedicated industry body. Thanks also goes to Austin Powder as the local host and Wolfgang Schuster who through his dedication made the Congress a success.

Wolfgang Schuster and John Rathbun, SAFEX Chairman