London Heathrow’s second largest airline, bmi, has implemented a new incident management and alert notification system at its Emergency Response Centre at London Heathrow and its Operations Control Centre at Donington Hall, Derby. The system will be used by between ten and 25 staff, to help manage and control the company’s complete incident management and emergency response process. 

Business needs 

The new system was implemented by Safeguard 999, a UK-based provider of business continuity, disaster recovery and incident management IT and communication systems. Ruth Pucci, Special Assistance Team Manager and part of the Emergency Planning Department at bmi’s Training Centre in Heathrow commented: “Our previous alert notification system was limited in terms of functionality, did not meet our growing needs as a business and was not particularly user-friendly.” 

“The new system from Safeguard 999 not only includes alert notification software, but also enables us to manage our complete emergency response process. We will also use the system for operational incidents such as technical delays. The overall integrated package is both resilient and easy-to-use. Our emergency response and operations staff require less than one day’s training before they’re ready to use it.”  “As far as keeping our business running and managing crises are concerned, the new system will save us valuable time and, should an emergency situation occur, will also ensure that we can provide full documentation, traceability and post-event analyses. The software also provides us with a framework to command, control and co-co-ordinate all our emergency resources, regardless of their geographical location,” added Pucci. 

Bmi is using two Safeguard 999 products, integrated into a single application. The first of these products, Crisis Commander, is an easy-to-use application that is based upon a standard methodology for business continuity management. The software provides a framework and communication infrastructure to enable companies to notify, mobilise, execute contingency plans and to work effectively as a team. Team members have access to the most critical crisis management functions. 

Features of Crisis

 Commander includes: Built-in set up assistance for Crisis Management Team (CMT) and Business Continuity (BC) managers; the ability to manage and activate BC plans; advanced emergency notification system; unlimited storage for contact lists; integrated capability for rapid crisis communication; automatic activity log; log analysing and filtering; built-in emergency web page for media/press announcements; meeting tool with pre-set and dynamic agendas; bulletin board for the CMT; system interface enables access via PCs, Blackberry and Smart phones; Mission Control Centre for handling of crises across organisations; built-in distribution system for sharing of plans within a group; excellent administrative functions to simplify BCM maintenance; and automatic update scheduling feature for plans, contact lists, etc. 

The second application is Alert Cascade, an automatic alert notification system that is fully integrated to Crisis Commander. Russell Pearson, Managing Director at Safeguard 999 commented: “Our solutions are all about expecting the unexpected. Companies that implement our software do so because they require systems to manage crises and keep their operations running at all times. We have customers from every type of industry, including both public and private sector companies. Some of the biggest strengths of our products are that they are conceptually very straightforward, but are also very resilient, cost effective and scalable.” 

Over 200 clients worldwide are now using Crisis Commander to protect their business, including Nissan, Siemens, Bosch, Aviva, Royal Berkshire Fire & Rescue Service, and City of London ‘Safer City Partnership’. 

Solutions 

Safeguard 999 delivers solutions that have been used successfully in the aftermath of the Asian Tsunami disaster, during the 7/7 London bombings and for response, collaboration and recovery from factory fires, power failures, severe weather, IT disasters, supply chain issues and numerous other incidents across the globe. 

For more information on Safeguard 999’s range of business continuity and disaster recovery solutions, 

please email: russell.pearson@safeguard999.co.uk

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