Raytheon Takes Enterprise Preparedness to New Levels
Release Date: April 4, 2007
Release Number: Con-01-04
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 Employees pick up informational materials at the personal preparedness event at Raytheon Corporate Headquarters. FEMA Photo/Lauren Smith  Raytheon employees speak with Marty Bahamonde, FEMA Region I External Affairs Director at the company's personal preparedness event. FEMA Photo/Lauren Smith |
"A warm front moved northward from the Gulf Coast during the early morning hours on March 1, 2007. Southerly winds behind the front spread a warm, moist and unstable atmosphere across all of central Alabama. A few thunderstorms developed along the warm front and these storms produced small hail and funnel clouds in western Alabama.
By noon, temperatures had warmed up to the 65 to 75 degree range. The atmosphere was primed for a significant outbreak of severe thunderstorms. Supercell thunderstorms developed around midday and moved west to east across central Alabama. These severe thunderstorms produced at least nine tornadoes (five EF-1's, three EF-2's and one EF-3) in the Birmingham County Warning Area. Many locations also experienced large hail, with baseball size hail being reported in Tuscaloosa County. A few locations received excessive rainfall up to three inches in a short period of time resulting in localized flash flooding."
--National Weather Service Forecast Office, Birmingham, AlabamaAround the country, Blackberries™ belonging to Raytheon Company's enterprise preparedness team were buzzing. Twelve hundred miles from central Alabama at Raytheon corporate facilities in Billerica, Mass., Robert Connors, director of preparedness, and his team quickly situated themselves in the company's global IT emergency operations center (GITEOC) to analyze available information. They focused their attention on the center's 72-inch screens which displayed detailed maps and icons representing employees' homes and Raytheon facilities. The team assessed the data and determined that no Raytheon employees or facilities had been directly impacted by the storm.
This scene plays out numerous times throughout the year in Raytheon's emergency operations centers. Employing commercial software, some innovation, and the company's human resources management system data, the Raytheon team is continuously ready to make sure that the company's greatest assets, its employees, are taken care of and accounted for.
Governed by a council representing Raytheon's six businesses and core functions, supported by a corporate policy for sustaining enterprise preparedness, and backed by the steadfast support of the company's leadership team, Raytheon's enterprise preparedness program seeks to ensure employees' safety, safeguard equipment and facilities, and mitigate the impact on business operations and customer commitments in the event of a disaster.
Raytheon's preparedness process was tested and enhanced following a November, 2006 explosion at a Danvers, Mass., chemical plant which destroyed and damaged homes and businesses, and displaced hundreds of residents. The enterprise preparedness team was able to analyze imagery provided by Google Earth Pro and, although none of the company's facilities were impacted, it was determined that two Raytheon employees' homes were located in the area of the explosion. In fact, one of the employees' homes, belonging to Alan Farrell, had been destroyed. Neither of the employees nor their families were harmed.
When Farrell returned to work, he was immediately approached by a manager who inquired about his welfare and immediate needs. He was referred to a human resources manager who relayed information about the disaster relief assistance set up to help employees in such situations. The manager explained that funds were available to reimburse him for certain out-of-pocket expenses.
"This event has been a most humbling experience," said Farrell. "The outpouring of help and support from people and organizations I don't even know about has been amazing. It is nice to know that Raytheon cares enough for its people to have a plan in place to help when disaster strikes, and it strikes when you least expect it. It certainly did for us," he said.
"Our mission is to enable early warning, notification, and rapid response to help ensure safety to employees and minimize disruption to their lives and the business," said Connors.
Some of the tools Raytheon has been using to support overall enterprise preparedness include Google Earth Pro, NC4, Dialogic Communicator and Web EOC. These software programs provide awareness, automated notification, and situation monitoring to Raytheon through web portals, e-mail and phone alerts, and 3D imaging. One common requirement for all the tools is that they work anywhere, anytime and can be operated on a laptop with a mobile broadband card.
An automated notification system (Dialogic Communicator) can notify up to 10,000 Raytheon employees per hour. Additionally, the WebEOC software used by Raytheon was designed by Emergency Service Integrators to bring real-time emergency information management to any size emergency operations center. Raytheon uses Web EOC to share a constant flow of information with colleagues assigned to incident management and incident support teams worldwide.
Through Google Earth Pro, Connors' team is able to overlay weather patterns and other incident data with the locations of Raytheon's assets. The team can determine almost immediately what level of response needs to be initiated and has standardized a five-tier alert system ranging from a monitored, "no action" event to a full corporate crisis. If there is a need for action, information and images are rapidly disseminated to preparedness teams in affected areas. These teams will ensure that employees are contacted by Raytheon's human resources organization which will work to connect families to resources that can provide help.
One of the enterprise preparedness program's key priorities for 2007 is to promote a culture of preparedness among employees. "Incidents will affect employees more often than our facilities," Connors noted, so while Raytheon is always looking out for its people, a personal preparedness plan is a crucial determinant of the outcome for many individuals and their families.
"Personal preparedness is a critical component of corporate preparedness," added Connors. "Our biggest challenge remains accountability by employees so that we can reach them. We are reminding people that they have a significant stake in the process."
To educate employees about personal preparedness, Raytheon communicates frequently through brown bag lunches, continuous updates and fresh stories on the company's internal web site.
Raytheon has also started hosting local events to raise awareness of preparedness internally. The company raffled off prizes and provided lunch during a recent "Preparedness Day" event in March - the first of its kind at Raytheon. Attended by more than 250 employees, the event was just one more tactic to further the company's goal of instituting a culture of disaster preparedness. Raytheon gave away a portable generator and handy red personal emergency preparedness kits to those who won the raffle. Raytheon employees who updated their personal (home and emergency) information during the Preparedness Day event were automatically entered to win the various prizes and giveaways.
Last Modified: Thursday, 19-Jul-2007 11:07:26