Business Continuity Plan

An incident occurs

It is about 1:30PM – just after lunch. There is a lot of noise – the staff are at the gather point – something is up. The leading hand is coming to the office.

The electrical transformer at the back of the processing shed has shorted and was making many sparks and much smoke. As per training, since the problem was electrical and the sheds are metal, the processing area has been isolated at the main switch box and then the building evacuated. The risk of electrocution and serious fire has been averted.

A headcount shows that everybody is accounted for and there were no injuries. A couple are a bit excited as they were near the power box when the big bang occurred.

In the cabinet at the public end of the office is the Incident Response Plan in a ring binder. This is the hard copy version. A soft copy version also exists on the computer network.

The first actions have already been accomplished. Now we follow the list and initial each action and add a time-date as they are done.

Next is to evaluate the extent of the damage and take photos before informing the electricity mob whose emergency contact number is on the contacts list in the plan.

While that is happening, we need to report in to head office.

The next is to contact our nominated electrician to attend – quickly. His mobile is also in the contact list, as is that of the insurance representative. He will need to do a claim assessment and inspection ASAP.

The power supply to the cool-room is off and the preparation area smells strongly of smoke. The main delivery for two of our larger customers is due tomorrow morning – better tell them. Their numbers are also in the contact list.

As per the Incident Response Plan, we may fall back to the old preparation area in the shipping container to prepare the afternoon’s packaging. Power can be provided by a couple of heavy extension cords stored nearby for that purpose. Space is a bit limited and there is no cool-room attached. Hopefully the sparkieSparkie is slang for electrician. can power the cool-room from some other circuit – did not think of that one. Update the plan for next time.

Time to contact our repair team to get an idea of time and cost. Their numbers are also in the contact list.

As the event had been foreseen, there was orderly activity (with mild panic). The list of actions has been followed and initialed with date-time for each one. As no-one was injured, the document will not go legal – but we were prepared if it did.