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User experienceBrief customer comments and use of AIMSChelmsford Borough Council’s EPO was involved with the working group set up Chaired by Richard Davies of Leeds City Council to evaluate the various incident management systems and was one of the first Authorities to then buy Atlas AIMS. They quickly recognised the potential for the system and took the opportunity, with the help of the new Civil Contingencies grant, to reorganise their Emergency Control Room around Atlas AIMS as the incident management system. They installed 10 PCs on a network back to a dedicated server located within the Control Room with 10 phones and wireless headsets to create an emergency call centre facility. In addition PCs for 2 managers and 6 operational units were provided. This enables messages to be entered directly onto the system by the call centre operators; messages are then evaluated and prioritised by the managers who decide the appropriate action and allocate them as tasks to the appropriate operational departments. The operational departments then receive the tasks allocated specifically to them and take appropriate action, updating the action taken onto the system. Regular training is given to volunteer staff who also have the opportunity to give their feedback on practical user issues. Once it has been set up, users found the system very intuitive to use – one of the main enhancements to v.2 released in Aug.07 was to enable the Administrator to precisely configure what facilities each user can access. The system has been used on numerous exercises and deliberate unsuccessful attempts to overload the system. In July07 it was used for real when a suspect WWII bomb was unearthed. A comprehensive log of actions being taken was easily maintained with input from not only within the Emergency Control Room but also remotely from Chelmsford’s dedicated Mobile Emergency Control vehicle at the scene.
Mobile Emergency Control Vehicle Principal Emergency Planning Officer Kelvin Ward explained that he saw one of the key advantages of the Atlas AIMS system being that it was developed specifically for Local Authority emergency planners and is very pleased an ongoing partnership has been maintained with the software company via the Atlas AIMS User Group which has resulted in further enhancements being incorporated based on operational experience with using the system. Chelmsford are very satisfied with the system and have a regular stream of visitors from other Authorities keen to see how they have integrated the system into their operational procedures.
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