By Seth Greenberg

As situation management systems are increasingly accepted, and simulations become more accurate and realistic, more and more incident response tasks will be trusted to automation.  (Photo by Orsus Solutions)

Recently, a passenger on a public bus in New York, U.S.A. found a “suspicious” lunchbox unattended on the bus.  The bus was evacuated and the bomb squad exploded the lunchbox in a controlled detonation.  Unfamiliar with the circumstances, another evacuated passenger sent a text message to a friend stating “There’s a bomb on the bus.” The friend happened to be riding a bus, as well.  He did not immediately recognize the number of the sender and panicked, thinking that someone was warning him that there was a bomb on HIS bus.  He showed the message to the driver, who promptly evacuated that bus and called in the police.

The success of civil involvement campaigns such as New York’s “If you see something, say something” are good news.  But this story also underscores some of the new challenges facing incident response professionals.  Whether on the street or in a secured facility, this new reality demands faster and more coordinated decision making and response.  Situation management software and methodology could be the key.

WHAT INHIBITS SUCCESSFUL SECURITY RESPONSE?

Madrid, London, Bali, Katrina, Tsunami.  Security planners hear these words and are compelled to revise contingency plans with previously unthinkable “that if” scenarios.  But even with the most experienced planners, the most advanced sensors, cameras, protection equipment and “enough” trained personnel, the most comprehensive plans can be hindered or even go astray in the field for a host of reasons:

• Heat of the Moment: Unfamiliar, unused emergency plans are forgotten under the pressure of time and rapidly changing circumstances.
• Communication Failure: Instructions can be too complex, often need to be repeated and are hampered by technology-oriented problems.  Lack of acknowledgement and confirmation slows progress.
• Motivation: Responders often need “that now?” tasks and not “big picture” procedures that require big decisions.
• Inadequate Resource Allocation: Planning for multiple simultaneous security incidents can be too complex to cover all unforeseen complications.
• Insufficient Training: Not enough time and too many people (e.g., outside agencies) for proper quantity or quality of training with everyone on every scenario.  Each of these challenges facing security response planning and deployment professionals are addressed by situation management software.

HOW DOES SITUATION MANAGEMENT WORK?

Situation management does not replace existing technologies.  It optimizes them and adds functions without disrupting workflow.  In fact, security workflow should actually be simplified by task automation delivered by an integrated situation management system.

Security System Integration, Unified Display and Event Logging

A situation management system integrates discrete security systems -- CCTV, sensors, access control, biometrics, etc. -- into a common platform with a unified, real-time, text or GIS-based display.  The systems that enable the quickest integration offer generic gateways for each technology and custom interfaces to provide a smooth interface for any system to communicate with any other system.

For example, when systems are integrated, a perimeter fence alarm triggered by a motion sensor might instruct a nearby camera to turn and fix on the intrusion point.  The camera’s VMD (Video Motion Detection) detector could then find the two nearest guards (through GPS/GIS integration) and alert them while streaming live video to their PDAs.  All these events would be monitored in the control room and logged automatically.

An integrated system can also be scheduled and synchronized through a unified control application.  In this way, time of day, day of week, alert level or any other set of conditions can control the behavior of multiple security systems.

Response Planning Support and Automation

Sometimes intuition is appropriate in the field, but sometimes it can confound an otherwise well-planned process.  When decisions are best kept out of the hands of field personnel, “bite-size” tasks are called for.  But spoon-feeding small tasks is resource-intensive for command and control staff.  With a planning support and automation tool, response plans can be moved from static paper or electronic media into a dynamic format that can be deployed automatically, step-by-step.

When a responder acknowledges completion of a task through a digital mobile device, the situation management system feeds the next task to the field.  This can be going on simultaneously with many responders, in many different situations, with little or no interaction with command and control.  Field personnel are empowered to act at the pace that realistic in the field.  Command and control staff can choose to retain manual control over more sensitive procedures, while relegating routine and familiar tasks to the system.

Mobile Workforce Management

In a situation management solution, knowing where personnel are, what they are doing (and not doing) and communicating with them are interdependent parts of the same system.  This unified approach is achieved through three types of tools working together seamlessly:

• Location Detection Systems, such as GPS, RFID and the like monitored through a real-time GIS interface tell C&C staff where everyone (and everything) is.
• Real-time Information Display System connected with a situation management database provides updated status of any human or technology resource in the display.  Click on a patrol to list their active tasks, what equipment they have, and drill-down into a bio with relevant training and field experience information (e.g., Do they speak Spanish?  Do they have negotiating skills?).
• Digital Mobile Communication Devices, such as PDAs, mobile phones and laptops/tablets, facilitate delivery of actionable information using HTTP, SMS, email, etc. to the workforce with media such as images, video and interactive text which can be far more comprehensive and comprehensible than voice alone.

Reports, Analysis and Simulations

When all human and system events are recorded electronically, trends, statistics, workflows and individual successes and failures are easy to identify and analyze.  For planners, this knowledge is integral for re-planning to fill the gaps in existing procedures.  The same knowledge can serve as the basis for tabletop simulations and even full-scale exercises whose progress can be monitored (and later analyzed) using the various situation management tools.

INCIDENT RESEPONSE IS CHANGING

Human responders and the hardware that extends their capabilities will always be a critical part of the security response mix.  But hardware vendors will need to be more aware of standards for open integration and IP communication.  As technology makes contingency planning easier to develop and troubleshoot, response planners will need to scrutinize plans far more thoroughly and build them with the branching logic and dependency links that security officers will come to expect.

As for the responders themselves, situation management and analysis will place a greater emphasis on accountability.  Electronic logging of response events will be fast and easy, making logs more accurate and easy to analyze.

The development of situation management is a reflection of the gradual development of its individual constituent components and their piecemeal convergence with one another.  For example, security integrators have been building solutions by linking together various systems.  GIS mapping has reached a respectable level of maturity, and basic logging and reporting tools have already simplified the workflow of many responders and incident commanders.

The elements of today’s situation management solutions that have been missing, however, are automated planning support and the deliberate development of a platform to integrate any and all security systems.  A comprehensive plan incorporates all resources, technological and human.  A unified platform lets the components operate as a single system.  When the plan and its distinct tasks are automated throughout the unified system, response is dramatically accelerated while human error is reduced and resource management and continuity of operation improve.  With adequate system-oriented acceleration, the focus of security technologies can swing from investigation toward prevention, saving money and lives.

THE FUTURE OF SECURITY RESPONSE

Security officers are still not ready to hand over control of all critical incident response tasks to machines.  But as situation management systems are increasingly accepted, and simulations become more accurate and realistic, more and more tasks will be trusted to automation.  Similarly, as security workers discover two-way digital mobile communication devices and their advantages -- images, video, interactive text and applications, in addition to voice -- these devices will replace the ubiquitous radio.  Even the traditional radio manufacturers admit that the voice-only-radio days are coming to an end, prompting heavy R&D in their digital systems divisions.

Moving a security operation toward comprehensive situation management demands that certain questions be asked of equipment vendors: Does the product have a network interface?  Can its messaging output be customized?  More important, security management teams will need to answer tough questions: Are we concerned with compliance, or do we actually want to know that our response plans will work?  Is our investment in hardware and human resources justified, or is it possible that a better coordinated solution might optimize resource usage?  Do we know what is happening in real time and how to deal with it, or are we better at discovering security breaches after the fact?

In the end, no technology can prevent crime or terror.  It takes human intelligence and experience to process the information generated by technology to know what is happening and what to do.  But recent innovations in situation management could help response planners, security managers and responders get the most accurate picture of what is happening and what to expect.  Armed with this knowledge, physical security personnel can best manage resources, ensure continuity of operations and, of course, optimize incident response speed and accuracy.

Seth Greenberg is Marketing Director of Orsus Solutions (www.orsus.com).

For more information, please send your e-mails to swm@infothe.com.

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