Proposal for telecommunications and audiovisual services, Oct 1997

NYC 9/11 Public Portal Document

10/21/97 TUE 08:46 _725_28®4 SHEN MILSOU & WILKE <2)004

PROJECT understand^

The Mayor’s OEM has an important function in the management of a crisis. The ability of city government managers and agencies to gather key people and to collate, assess and react to all available information in a timely manner is critical to successful crisis management. Today there is a tremendous amount of information available from a variety of sources. Realtime computer, voice, and video information exists across a variety of agencies, plus numerous stored databases of maps, data and images can all be accessed instantly for use by crisis managers How to access and use this ever-increasing stream of information most effectively is an important consideration. Operations centers have moved from paper maps, grease pencils and the sneaker network, to projected high resolution screens displaying realtime information such as data, weather map displays and live camera feeds. Access to information is a fundamental need in a crisis.

Our experience includes a variety of command and control center projects, including government, military, telecommunications and corporate network centers. Through that experience we have learned many valuable lessons which we are able to pass along to our clients. There are several key issues we want to address with the Mayor’s Office of Emergency Management design team:

Type and Density of Information to be Displayed

Number of User Groups at the Consoles and Sources of Information

The Information Hierarchy - Who Needs to Read What Information, and for How Long (user groups frequently require certain screens remain dedicated to particular information and a single scalable image does not always meet everyone’s needs.)

Physical Space of the Command Center - how it is allocated for current use, future growth, crisis management and secondary functions such as training and presentations.

Command centers can serve multiple functions and with careful initial planning can provide the flexibility to meet fast-changing needs. Issues such as lighting, connectivity, primary and secondary displays, signal routing of on-line information, both data and video, can make the command center a more useful space over its lifetime.

This proposal describes our scope of services to be provided and the related fees. While all phases of the design process are important, none is more important than the programming phase of a design project. The establishment of real goals and design parameters and the careful documentation of those goals is critical to the process. The program effort establishes a solid foundation and a clear direction from which the design process can proceed.

Proposal Y-27 - Mayor’s O£Rce of Emergency Management Teiecommunicabons. Audiovisual and Acoustic Consulting Services OaoberZl, 1997 - Page 3 Shen Milsom & Wilke, Inc.

NYC-WTC_000167261