Facility Concerns

Within every organization and/or facility, someone is in charge of the safety and security of the people and the facility. In large organizations, this might be the facility manager; in smaller organizations, this task probably falls to someone else, possibly whoever is responsible for business continuity. Information in this week's articles could be very helpful to whoever has this responsibility; consider passing them on.

The single most important issue is to protect the security and safety of building occupants. (Item #1)   Did you ever think of your outside smoking area as a security risk? (Item #2)   If your building suffers a disruption, it's important to morale to get things back to normal as soon as possible. (Item #3)  

Emergency evacuation procedures are focused on the safety of the people, not the facility.
(Item #4)   One of the most important - perhaps even the most important - tools of the facility manager is a method of communicating with everyone in the building. (Item #5)   If you're building a data center, it's better to build in some security measures rather than adding them later. (Item #6)  

As always, we look forward to hearing your comments & insights regarding business continuity. If you have a topic you'd like us to cover, email me at [email protected].

Bob Mellinger, President
Attainium Corp

1. Threats In The Dark

Facility managers (fms) in recent years have been forced to upgrade their security systems not only to protect their buildings from intruders but also to shield employees from each other. According to a Bureau of Labor Statistics survey, 389,380 establishments had an incident of workplace violence within a 12 month period. Half of those establishments employed over 1,000 people, and over 25% of them had no security.
http://www.todaysfacilitymanager.com/tfm_08_08_trends.php

2. Smoking is hazardous to facility security health

This is a vulnerability that most companies have. Fortunately, it can be addressed fairly quickly, at little or no cost, depending on the security measures currently in place. Read on to see how your outdoor smoking area can put your facility at risk.
http://www.thesecurityminute.com/smoking-is-hazardous-to-facility-security-health

3. Managing Facility Disruption

It is a fact that a better risk-managed facility leads to significantly reduced volatility of earnings for an enterprise and yet we continue to see little evidence of organizations implementing plans and measures to recover the temporary loss of their facility following an incident.
http://www.continuitycentral.com/feature0820.html

4. Developing an emergency evacuation strategy

Over the years, business continuity planners have looked at emergency and contingency plans for such diverse threats as fires, floods, hurricanes, typhoons, tornadoes, earthquakes, terrorist activity, riots, demonstrations and military coups. In all of these situations there is a basic question of how best to ensure the safety of the people. Often there is a choice of whether or not to evacuate the building. Sometimes it is safer to remain indoors than attempt to run away into the face of danger. There may not be sufficient warning to allow a proper choice to be made.
http://www.continuitycentral.com/feature099.htm

5. Getting the Message

Facilities today face a broad range of safety and security threats, and these seem to increase every year. Whether it is severe weather, explosive or chemical threats, or a gun wielding attacker, facility managers must be prepared for these and other types of incidents and be ready to respond with effective mitigating action. In responding to these incidents, one of the most important tools an fm can have is the ability to communicate effectively with facility occupants.
http://www.todaysfacilitymanager.com/tfm_08_07_factech.php

6. 19 Ways to Build Physical Security into a Data Center

There are plenty of complicated documents to guide companies through the process of designing a secure data center-from the gold-standard specs used by the federal government to build sensitive facilities like embassies, to infrastructure standards published by industry groups like the Telecommunications Industry Association, to safety requirements from the likes of the National Fire Protection Association. But what should be the CSO's high-level goals for making sure that security for the new data center is built into the designs, instead of being an expensive or ineffectual afterthought?
http://www.csoonline.com/article/220665/19-ways-to-build-physical-security-into-a-data-center