Overview
Timely, accurate communication is crucial during a fire emergency. Seconds can literally mean the difference between life and death. Such emergencies demand a rapid, reliable mass notification system to notify all personnel, provide instructions, obtain feedback, and assess status and safety of personnel in real-time.
The National Fire Alarm and Signaling Code (NFPA 72) dictates safety protocols to include a mass notification system (MNS). NFPA’s 2010 edition further addresses the need for network-centric emergency mass notification and its integration with fire alarm systems. The Unified Facility Code (UFC) also recommends adopting network-centric alerting systems (NCAS) to enhance existing capabilities. AtHoc directly addresses these crucial MNS and NCAS requirements.
Challenge
Traditional fire alarm systems are passive and can only produce a general evacuation tone or a voice announcement conveying limited information. While these types of alarm systems have value, they are inadequate.
Organizations must turn to new technologies that augment conventional fire alarm systems and provide an enhanced spectrum of capabilities that save lives and protect property.
Solution
AtHoc IWSAlerts extends legacy life safety systems from limited alerts to a modern, third-generation, bi-directional system capable of reaching multiple alert channels and devices, enabling a faster, safer, and more effective response over traditional methods. AtHoc IWSAlerts transforms an organization’s IP network into an enterprise-class, net-centric emergency mass notification system. By utilizing the IP network, alert dissemination is pervasive and significantly quicker. Once integrated with existing fire safety systems, rapid alerts are initiated from a single, unified web-based console designed to trigger alerts from any network-connected PC and disseminated across the network in intrusive audio/visual pop-up messages to desktop computers as well as through mobile devices such as cell phones, pagers, BlackBerry devices, PDAs, and many traditional alerting channels: sirens, telephones, and public address (PA) systems, capable of intelligible voice messages that can be sent via indoor and outdoor mass notification. |
Industry Article
Unified Network-Centric Emergency Mass Notification Systems Aiding in Fire Threat Protection and Multi-Threat Response
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Architectural diagram illustrates how the AtHoc solution augments conventional fire alarm systems to provide comprehensive, bi-directional alerting to address a full spectrum of threats
Benefits
In the chaotic atmosphere of a fire emergency, the AtHoc solution gives incident commanders (ICs) the ability to obtain and disseminate critical, detailed information by sending targeted alerts to specific groups based on location, role and organizational hierarchy. This action accelerates response time and gets the right personnel to the exact fire location and facilitates evacuation routes for building occupants. Such timely information is invaluable to emergency managers and ICs as they make crucial, rapid decisions, enhancing their response to the threat.
Another benefit of AtHoc IWSAlerts system for the ICs is the feedback and tracking capabilities that communicate the status of alert recipients (OK, injured, etc.) and also determine their location and ability to act, providing ICs with a reliable picture of personnel accountability.
Additional advantages of a network-based emergency mass notification system for the fire community are numerous:
- Richer message delivery: deliver detailed and tailored communications based on the threat or scenario (i.e. evacuation instructions, more data requested, call-backs)
- Multi-use/full-spectrum threat response: have greater capability to respond to any threat or scenario requiring rapid and pervasive mass notification
- Regulatory compliance: IP-based notification complies with federal and Department of Defense emergency mass notification guidelines. Compliance with regulatory requirements for life safety and emergency response (i.e., NFPA 2010, DoD UFC)
- Cost savings: by leveraging the existing IP network, an organization can realize substantial cost savings by eliminating multiple, independent systems and reducing infrastructure and support costs
- Quick installation: By leveraging the existing network, installation and infrastructure integration can be completed within hours or just a few days
- The AtHoc IP Integration Module (IIM), integrates with non-IP fire notification solutions, i.e., fire panels, Public Address (PA) speakers, and sirens to trigger WAV or text-to-speech (TTS) audio alerts during an emergency, with alarm override capacity
- Emergency operators can target alerts by zone or a specific building using the geo-based interface
- Pre-defined scenarios allow ease of management in the emergency notification flow across the enterprise
- Message consistency through unified communications channels
Working in concert with existing fire and life safety systems, AtHoc delivers compliant, tailored solutions that meet the physical security, property protection and personnel accountability needs of any large, distributed organization such as the military, universities, hospitals, federal or government offices.
Read more about AtHoc’s fire and life safety solutions in Microsoft’s PartnerPoint online publication: Unified Network-Centric Emergency Mass Notification Systems Aiding in Fire Threat Protection and Multi-Threat Response
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