THE PROBLEM
COMAH sites are extremely hazardous environments, due to the nature of the products manufactured, used or stored on their sites which are classified as highly dangerous substances (chemical plants, nuclear sites, heavy industries etc). They therefore have strict regulations in place to reduce the impact of a major accident involving these high-risk substances or processes, which would cause significant damage and harm to the surrounding environment and those within the vicinity.
On-site training is frequently carried out as a result, with emergency response planning required as a mandatory part of this process. This emergency planning is regularly conducted as a table-top exercise, which involves reviewing the sites ability to effectively deal with hazardous incidents by testing the plan and the people that have a responsibility to enact the plan.
The problem here lies with the current training procedures used for this. Training is generally conducted with a scenario or incident been briefed to the team, and the relevant site personnel conducting roleplay to add an element of realism throughout the process, although this is not always performed in real–time, is frequently done with paper/hardcopy documents to work through, and visualising the ensuing incident is extremely difficult.
Due to the lack of visual reference when conducting table-top exercises, decision making does not accurately replicate a potential real-life scenario, and because of the limited data available to an Incident Management Team, can actually lead to poor decisions and actions been made throughout the exercises, which could have serious implications if the same principles are applied or used at a ‘live’ incident.
Due to these concerns, a more dynamic and technical solution was actively sought after, which is what brought LIMA to life.
THE SOLUTION
Lampada worked alongside HFR Solutions to address the need of a more engaging and immersive solution for COMAH sites, and emergency planning training. LIMA was developed and tailored to HFR Solutions specific needs, so that they could incorporate the software in their Emergency Planning and Incident Management Team training courses.
LIMA provides a fully immersive mapping tool designed for emergency planning and training for COMAH and other high-risk industries. With LIMA, incident response planning comes to life as a multitude of dynamic and realistic scenarios are simulated with visual accuracy to the customers site. The software allows the Incident Management Team to not only see the ongoing incident in real-time, but experience the implications of the decisions made and the impact this has on the incident, without any real life consequences – producing a far greater immersive experience, and a more effective tool to review decisions made, the effectiveness of the emergency plan and the competency of the staff.
The software works by allowing the facilitator to replicate incident variations e.g. fire, explosion, gas release, flooding etc, and add the appropriate response from site personnel to give real-time feedback on the incident. The features allow replication of live weather variations (wind speed, direction etc) and add features such as external emergency services (fire service, police and ambulance response) and other agencies that would be attending site e.g. environment agency, service providers such as Electric, Gas and Water).
The visualisation tool has a set of features that enhance that hard copy plans, capable of plotting dynamic data such as hazard cordons with clear measurements (e.g. blast radius), site perimeters (is the incident effecting people and property off-site), and line calculations e.g. assisting emergency services with road cordons, length of firefighting hose from water supplies to scene of incident etc.
Users can draw a line and instantly tell the distance, and automatically find the quickest road route for it, enabling interactive scripted events/incidents. It also benefits from features that can only be done with computation, such as modelling flooding and dynamically changing the wind to influence where the smoke plumes go, which cannot be replicated with the traditional training practices.
HFR Solutions Operations Director commented: ‘’LIMA offers Incident Management Teams a professional platform to replicate realistic site incidents with clear visual perspective on the ensuing incident, actions required and the impact of these actions on the incident, both on and off-site. This training and incident management software transforms how we test the tactical & strategic management teams, to effectively resolve emergency incidents. It has enhanced the learning experience of our delegates and provides positive engagement at all levels with fantastic feedback throughout our training courses”.
LIMA has undoubtedly enhanced the training experience delivered by HFR Solutions.
Provides positive engagement at all levels
“LIMA offers Incident Management Teams a professional platform to replicate realistic site incidents with clear visual perspective on the ensuing incident, actions required and the impact of these actions on the incident, both on and off-site. This training and incident management software transforms how we test the tactical & strategic management teams, to effectively resolve emergency incidents. It has enhanced the learning experience of our delegates and provides positive engagement at all levels with fantastic feedback throughout our training courses.”