NIMS Supporting Technology Evaluation Program (STEP) 


The National Preparedness Directorate (NPD) has developed a program to assist the emergency management/response community identify products that adhere to standards and the concepts and principles of the National Incident Management System (NIMS). The program, called the NIMS Supporting Technology Evaluation Program (NIMS STEP), provides objective evaluations of supporting technologies. 
Evaluation activities are designed to help expand technology solutions, and provide the emergency management/response community with a comprehensive process to assist in the purchasing of incident management products. The program has five primary objectives: 
• To evaluate products for their incorporation of NIMS concepts and principles. 
• To determine products’ adherence to the Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards (OASIS) Common Alerting Protocol (CAP) 1.1 standard. 
• To determine products’ adherence to the OASIS Emergency Data eXchange Language-Distribution Element (EDXL-DE) 1.0 standard. 
• To determine products’ adherence to the OASIS EDXL-Hospital AVailability Exchange (EDXL-HAVE) 1.0 standard. 
• To determine products’ adherence to the OASIS EDXL-Resource Messaging (EDXL-RM) 1.0 standard. 

Products that implement one or more of these standards (CAP 
or EDXL-DE, EDXL-HAVE or EDXL-RM) will be given priority. According to NIMS, systems operating in an incident management environment must be able to interact smoothly across disciplines and jurisdictions.  Interoperability and compatibility are achieved through the use of tools such as common communications and data standards, digital data formats, equipment standards and design standards. 
Recognized experts in the field of emergency 
management/response assess products in a realistic environment and provide feedback based on guidelines as 
determined by NIMS (FEMA 501). Test engineers evaluate products’ adherence to NIMS recommended standards. 

Additionally, NIMS STEP assessments provide vendors with an independent process for identifying gaps and making improvements to their products. 

NIMS STEP evaluation activities are conducted at the NIMS 
Support Center (NIMS SC) in Somerset, Kentucky. The NIMS SC is 
equipped to evaluate products that support emergency managers/responders in decision-making prior to and during an incident, such as alert and warning, command and control, and resource management applications. 

The following NIMS criteria are applied during each evaluation: 
• Emergency Support 
• Scalability 
• Hazards 
• Resource Management 
• Communication and Information Management 
• Command and Management 

The NIMS SC also evaluates each product against implementation criteria, including the time and training impacts on governmental entities. 

For more information and to apply for an evaluation, please visit: www.nimsstep.org 
Results from each evaluation may be accessed on the following website: 
https://www.rkb.us 

February 2009