Developing a Strategy to Reduce False Alarms Served by Hampshire Fire and Rescue Service - Case Study Example

Project Initiation Document for developing a strategy to reduce false alarms caused by automatic fire detection equipment in jurisdiction served by Hampshire Fire and Rescue Service. Name Course Instructor’s Name Date Table of Contents Introduction 3 Project life cycle 3 Mandate 3 Initiation 3 Implementation 4 Handover 4 The Project Initiation Document 4 Aim 4 Objective 4 Benefits 5 Cost 5 Business case 6 Precedence chart 8 Staffing 9 Risk management plan 10 Document management plan 13 References 14 Introduction Project management is an important requirement in any organization and numerous strategies exists that can champion completion of projects. Nevertheless, numerous factors are associated project that include project initiation document. Thus, the aim of this paper is to develop a project initiation document for reducing false alarms that are usually caused by fire detection equipment within the Hampshire Fire and Rescue Service. Project life cycle Mandate The mandate for this project is to establish a strategy that can be used by Hampshire Fire and Rescue Service to reduce false alarms caused by automatic fire detection equipment. False fire alarm calls divert fire fighters away from their primary role of preventing fires and attending to real emergencies. In addition, they cost enormous amounts of money via disruption to work and business continuity. The cost of false fire alarms in UK is approximately £1 billion annually (Ray & David, 2009). Frequent false alarms may also cause complacence and hence people may not respond correctly to a warning in the event of a real fire. Given the effect of the false fire alarm in our FRS and noting that such alarms caused by automatic fire detection equipment can be controlled, the Chief Officer of Hampshire FRS appointed me as project manager to develop a project proposal for reducing false fire alarms caused by automatic fire detection equipment. This was the final draft of the PID and once approved by the board will mark the point of initiation. Initiation Once the PID has been approved, this will mark the start of the initiation process. Implementation Implementation process will begin when the actions planned in the PID are initiated Handover This will involve handing back the reports and documents developed from the project. Some of these will be handed to the mainstream management team of the firm during the project course. Such reports may include the number of properties with genuine fire alarms and those with substandard fire alarm systems. Other reports emanating from evaluation process will be handed over at the end of the project. The Project Initiation Document Aim This project aims to develop a strategy by the end of April, 2011 to reduce the level of false alarms caused by automatic fire detection equipment well below one a year for every 50 detectors within communities served by Hampshire FRS. Objective To ensure that all automatic fire alarms provided to residents of Hampshire are from companies certified under the approved scheme by the end of April, 2011 To ensure that residents in Hampshire know how to use and maintain fire alarms systems properly To ensure that fire detection and fire alarms systems of our customers are designed, installed and maintained to the highest possible standard by the end of April, 2011 To ensure that persons employed by residents to design and install new fire detection system or to maintain an existing system are competent, that is, they have the necessary training, experience, knowledge and abilities to do the work by the end of April, 2011. Benefits By reducing the level of false alarms the service will be able to reduce the waste of resources that result from false alarms. This will also help in prevention of the complacency of building users caused by repeatedly generated false alarms. The service will also be able to safely deploy its emergency intervention resources on the basis of risk. This will also reduce the number of false alarms that are passed to the Hampshire service control staff. This will in addition help in the improvement of the fire safety management of the protected premises and reduce the impact of false alarms on business and commerce. Thus adoption of the strategy that will be developed in this project will reduce false alarms hence saving the customers of Hampshire FRs and the service itself money, reduce wasted efforts and save lives. If the project is successful, the firm will be able to save approximately £2,000 for every false fire alarm that it could have attended to. Such saving will be subsequently be diverted in the improvement of services provided to the residents of Hampshire. Cost Resource Cost per day Number of days Number of resources Total cost Leader £350.00 60 1 £21,000.00 Automatic fire alarm expert £400.00 30 20 £240,000.00 Firefighters £300.00 30 20 £180,000.00 Technical architects £450.00 30 20 £270,000.00 Other costs and fees* £300,000.00 Contingency £101,100.00 Total cost £1,112,100.00 *This is a sum of money made available to the project to fund other activities such as event organization Business case Hampshire fire and rescue service responds to over 7,000 false alarm systems on yearly basis. Such false alarm calls divert the efforts of the firm away from its basic role of preventing fires and attending to real emergencies. These false alarm calls also cost the firm millions of pounds to commerce via disruption of work and business continuity. The firm has recognized that when fire detection and fire alarm system is used and maintained properly, its rapid response to fire can reduce the risk to life and limit damage to property (John, 2007). However, such features may cause false alarms. Thus the Hampshire fire and rescue service is striving to reduce the number of false alarm calls which are generated by automatic fire detection equipment. To attain this, the service will have to invest heavily in public awareness and encouraging residents to install in their facilities fire alarms systems which are standard and provided by certified contractors. The service will be involved in publicizing the names of contractors and designers who are certified to provide the designing and installation of automatic fire alarms systems in Hampshire. The Hampshire fire and rescue service intends to inspect and evaluate all fire alarm systems in the region to ensure that they are to the required standard and those that are below the standard are replaced. This will ensure that false alarms are reduced to the lowest minimum possible in our case, below one in every fifty per year in fire alarm installed in the region. This will help the firm attain its vision of making Hampshire a safer place and its aim of protecting people, property, their heritage and the environment. This will also allow the firm to respond to real emergencies such as responding to environmental emergencies, terrorist attacks and major flooding incidents in addition to responding to fires in the best way possible (Corky, 2009). Furthermore, reducing automatic fire alarms will ensure that Hampshire fire and rescue service directs its resources in the identification of risks in its local communities and ensures that the resources are allocated toward lowering these risks. In addition, this will reduce cases of complacence which can lead to death, injury and extensive property damage. This will also reduce cases of businesses ceasing to operate since it is known that many firms which suffer a serious fire will never effectively recover and may stop trading. Above all, by reducing the number of false alarms the firm will be able to save over 14 million of pounds which are being spent to attend to over 7,000 false alarms which occur annually. This will imply that such amount that is saved can be utilized in improving service delivery to the communities living in Hampshire. Given that the firm will spent just 300,000 pounds to attain such saving it is prudent that the firm invests in this project. The staff for this project will be sourced form within the service and hence no additional staff costs will be incurred. In addition, the process of handover will be easy once the project is over since those involved in the project will be those that have developed the program. Some real costs will be incurred during implementation of the project in events provided from external sources. The current cost estimates for these events is £300,000 which will be funded by reallocation of the support staff qualification training budget. Given the magnitude of the occurrence false automatic fire alarms and the cost involved, ignoring this project can be against the firm’s mandate of identifying and allocating resources to mitigate risks. Such a move can continue escalating if nothing is done at the moment to try and reduce the incidence of such false alarms. Given that the outcome of this project will reduce the number of false alarms and cut the costs involved in responding to them, we argue that this project is necessary to undertake and is inexpensive in the long run (Ronny & John, 1988). Tasks 1. Write and agree project initiation document 2. Obtain materials for educating the public on the need to have automatic fire alarms that are designed, installed and maintained by certified professionals 3. Advertise tender for designing posters to be used to sensitize the public of contractors who are certified to provide standard automatic fire alarms in Hampshire 4. Select a firm to provide the posters 5. Brief staff on the provision of the above 6. Schedule workshops and staff time for educating the public 7. Schedule staff time for inspection of the automatic fire alarms in the region and recommendation on any need to change the system 8. Final evaluation of the systems and recommendation 9. Hire venues for holding public workshops 10. Advertise to the public where and when the workshops will be held 11. Meeting for potential promotion candidates 12. Agree on public education needs education 13. Launch public workshops 14. Launch automatic fire alarm inspection and 15. Launch of evaluation process of the fire alarm systems in the region. Precedence chart March 1st to 6th March 7th to 13th March 14th to 20th March 21st to 27th March 28th to April 3rd April 4th to 10th April 11th to 17th April 18th to 24th April 25th to May 1st 1 2 3 5 6 7 4 9 10 11 12 13 14 16 15 17 8 Staffing This will include all employees to be involved in the implementation process of the project. They will include: Leader – this will ensure the smooth running of the project activities Automatic fire alarm experts- these will be involved in the inspection and evaluation process of the fire alarm systems in the region and recommendation of those that need to be replaced Firefighters- these will be involved in educating the public on the need to have fire alarms that are authentic. Technical architects- these will be involved in inspecting and evaluating the design of the automatic fire alarms in the region Risk management plan Risks to this project are: 1. Residents opposition to install new fire alarm systems to replace the non standard systems 2. Lack of cooperation by residents during inspection and evaluation process period 3. Firefighters involved in the project may be too busy to attend to other duties of responding to emergencies during the time they will be involved in public workshops (Craig et al., 2007). 4. Inability to complete the inspection and evaluation process on time. Risk 1 Likely impact if risk does occur Likelihood of risk occurring L M H L M H R Risk 2 Likely impact if risk does occur Likelihood of risk occurring L M H L M R H Risk 3 Likely impact if risk does occur Likelihood of risk occurring L M H L M H R Risk 4 Likely impact if risk does occur Likelihood of risk occurring L M H L M R H Having identified the above risks we propose the following management actions to be undertaken to mitigate the risks as part of the project: To ensure that firefighters involved in educating the public during the project emphasize the need for inspection and evaluation of resident’s existing fire alarm systems and the consequences of not cooperating Residents found to have defective or under standard fire alarm systems should be informed of the need and benefits of replacing the system with standard systems supplied by certified contractors. This implies that facilities identified to have such systems will require that firefighters visit them and advice the residents on the benefits of installing standard fire alarms (Merton, 2009). Set daily targets for those involved in inspection and evaluation process to ensure all facilities are inspected and evaluated on time Ensure that firefighters are involved in workshops held in their region of operation, that is, near their fire stations in order for them to respond to emergency Document management plan All documents will be titled and numbered in accordance to the Hampshire fire and rescue service project management system. Any amendments to documents or new documents are to be agreed at the team meetings to be held on weekly basis prior to being entered into the system. References Corky B., 2009. Building Systems for Interior Designers, 2nd Edition. Manchester: John Wiley and Sons. Craig H. et al., 2007. Industrial Firefighting for Municipal Firefighters. Oxford: Fire Engineering Books. John F., 2007. Encyclopedia of security management. London: Butterworth-Heinemann. Merton W., 2009. NFPA Pocket Guide to Fire Alarm and Signaling System Installation, 3rd Edition. London: Jones & Bartlett Learning. Ray A., & David W., 2009. Industrial Safety and Health Management, 6th Edition. London: Prentice Hall. Ronny J., & John A., 1988. Managing fire services. London: International City Management Association. Read More