A fire is the worst thing that could happen in a building (feel free to contest this). If your office space or school is anything like my old secondary school, then a lot (i.e. all) of the fire alarms were activated by bored kids looking for an hour off than actual fire. Although I have always wondered whether an hour out in the playground lined up according to your form class was any better than an hour in the classroom, no matter how dull it may have been. Nevertheless, in case of an actual fire, what can you do to make sure that absolutely everyone in your building is accounted for in case of a fire? We present our solution to your problem- the Digital Sign-in register. Read on for its relevance and bonus features.
Do you record wasted fire drills?
Local authority Fire services attended 170,000 fires in the year 2013-14. They also attended 223,400 false alarms and 130,600 non-fire incidents nationally. What does this say about organizations and people in general? We call fire services a lot.
For an organisation in a building (schools, office spaces, wherever you may be), there is no way of figuring out whether the alarm was false or whether there is a real danger when the alarm goes off. It is of utmost importance that you make sure every single person in the building is out safely as soon as possible.
Do you use a paper based visitors book?
So for buildings with visitors (like schools, university buildings and organizations), how do you make sure you get everyone, including those visitors? Do you have a sign on register with the name and time of entry? Do you have multiple registers for each department? How do you make sure they are notified of the fire on time (let’s imagine they cannot see the mad dash of everyone else in the building for the time being- perhaps they’re fixing the boiler in the basement)?
At OFEC, we offer digital signing-in facility that can be used as a central facility to register each and every individual that is in the building. Thus, in case of a fire alarm, this register can be used to take everyone out of the building promptly. In addition, the register also lists where the person is in the building- in the worst-case scenario that they are trapped, the location indicator will allow the fire marshall to help them out.
The digital sign-in register can be used across multiple platforms, allowing mobile devices such as IPads to be taken around to the visitors to sign in. Automated messaging service integrated into this means the visitors can be contacted in real time. To go one step further, it can be branded with your own personal message, such as the traffic on A40, allowing the visitors to benefit from this information and thus feel warm towards your organization. According to Neilsen (market research authority), brand reputation is increasingly important in both developed countries like UK as well as globally. Building relationship is possible across platforms, if they see that you care about them.