MBA 209 Production/Operations ManagementCase Study # 3 Event Hub
Ross Richie, Loughborough UniversityThe ‘event hub’ was new, shiny and fitted with the latest equipment. Chief Superintendent JaniceWalker was looking forward to using it as the ‘Silver Commander’ of the Joint ServiceCommand ( JSC) at the forthcoming ‘event’. An ‘event’ is a term that is used to describe a widerange of public occasions, ranging from the management of a football match, a public protest, aroyal wedding through to a critical incident such as a terrorist attack. The management of anevent is a highly structured and well-practiced activity, bringing together many different bodiesthat have an interest in it. These could include, for example, the ambulance service, the police,transport authorities, security services and local authorities, among others. Although eventcommand structures (who reports to whom) were clearly defined, the design of each event wasunique. The operationalized command structure needed to be sufficiently flexible to cater for allthe different bodies that are represented ‘on the ground’ (OTG). These are the ambulances youmay see outside a football ground or the lines of police officers escorting a demonstration. TheseOTG services have localized commanders, who have delegated tactical responsibility and arecalled the ‘Bronze Commanders’ regardless of whether they belong to the ambulance, police orfire services, or any other body. Bronze Commanders all report to the Silver Commander.The command hub
All of the OTG services and commanders report back to a centralized intelligence and decision-making command hub. It is often located away from the event, coordinated through a vast array
of visual and audio communication networks. Within the hub there are representatives from eachof the Bronze command units providing direct communication and command links to each of theOTG resources. Also in the hub, there is the single strategic commander called the ‘SilverCommander’. In larger events, there may be as many as 80 different personnel in the commandhub, coordinating between the Silver Commander and 15–20 OTG Bronze Commanders who,between them, manage more than 400 individual resources and assets. The Silver CommanderJanice has acted as a Silver Commander before and knew that it was a highly pressured role,even though this time she would have a tactical advisor, a recorder (recording all decisions andactions), a communications officer and a runner in her support team. ‘At some difficult phases ofan Event, you may be making several critical decisions every minute. Silver Commanders have toassimilate a wide range of intelligence from many sources, match this with your resources andtheir locations, communicate your decisions to the OTG Bronze Commanders, and do all thiswithin strict policy and legislative constraints.’ In the upcoming event (a large protest march)Janice would have operational information inputs from:• The Bronze command representatives.• Their communications officer (who summarizes radio communications).• Intelligence feeds (from a specialist intelligence function).• Any visual feeds, for example CCTV, policy logs, news and social media.She would also have advisory inputs from tactical, media and legal advisors. These advisoryinputs were usually more discursive than the information coming from the OTG operationalunits. In the hub, the Bronze representatives would have support teams of their own. In thisevent, for example, the local authority planned to have five CCTV operators to support their
function, whereas the ambulance service representation was only a single officer. Figure belowshows the organizational ‘chain of command’ for the event.
Hub layoutThe bodies and services represented in the hub had varying requirements. For example, some ofthe intelligence functions needed to be sure that their computer screens would not be overlookedby other functions that were not security cleared to an appropriate level because of the sensitivityand secrecy of their information (such as the local authority representatives). This meant thatthey had been located in the far corner of the hub. Yet the intelligence functions would also needto get operational updates from the ambulance service and local authority to direct theirintelligence gathering efforts. Janice was worried that, because of this, there would be a highdegree of travelling between different functions in the room. The layout of the hub is shown infigure below. One of the greatest points of interest in the room was the mapping screen, where ascreen placed on the wall had special geographic information updated from all the OTG units.Both Bronze and Silver Commanders would probably need to view the real-time updates shownon this screen. Janice, as Silver Commander, was allocated the only office in the hub. This wasconventional practice because the Silver Commander needed a quiet place to go and consider hisor her decisions and take confidential guidance from advisors. Prior to the event, Janice hadplanned for ‘update meetings’ in the meeting room with 12 of her key personnel every two orthree hours during the march. The meeting room was located 30 meters away from the hub,though in the same building. Also, in the same building a secure area was provided for the widerintelligence functions. This was 10 meters away from the hub through two sets of locked doors.This provided a confidential area for the intelligence functions to operate without risk ofinformation leakage. Janice knew that events could be hectic, so in order to manage the busy
room, and control the noise levels of the room, she had appointed a room manager who would sitin the center of the room. The job of this officer would be to control movement within the roomand intervene if noise levels became excessive.
What happened?Janice was proved correct about its being hectic during the march. The first two hours of theprotest went according to plan with good coordination within her team and between her team andthe protest organizers. However, as the march progressed three things happened more or lessconcurrently. First, a splinter group from the march took a separate, non-agreed, route thatrequired extra resources to police. Second, one of the people marching suffered a heart attackand needed emergency treatment and transport to the nearest hospital (difficult in the crowds).Third, an unexpected (and unauthorized), but small, counter-demonstration took place as themarch passed a football stadium. And although the two sets of demonstrators were kept apart,there was raised tension and a need for extra monitoring of the situation. All of this resulted in anintense period of decision making and information gathering. Janice found herself continuallymoving between her office, the command teams and the screens, never spending more than acouple of minutes in one place. She was often followed by her tactical advisor, recorder andcommunications officer who had to run between her and their workstations, because theircomputers and radios were fixed to the desk. To try and reduce the travel of her staff, finallyJanice abandoned her office and moved her chair over to her ‘Silver Commander’s team’ area,close to the information screen. However, the general noise levels in the room were interruptingdiscussions, and Janice’s update meetings were also disturbing others in the room. The move hada positive effect of unifying Janice and her team. However, now there was now a constant flowof Bronze representatives and media advisors to and from the area where Janice was sitting. Yetthis was preferable to the earlier disruption caused by her moving around the room. She alsomade a further decision, which was not to consult the CCTV footage or the information screen,
and moved her desk away from the screen area. ‘It was information overload’, said Janice.‘Using these boards, I don’t need to micro-manage the resources, this is what my extended chainof command is in place to do.’ After several hectic hours, the event concluded successfully, withno injuries or serious incident, and with the operation being regarded as very successful.However, Janice had firm views on the new hub layout: ‘The layout of the room hindereddecision-making. The transfer of information on this kind of time critical operation is vital. Theremust be a better way of setting out the hub. It would not require much capital to re-design thearea to reflect what we do. It could be more like a production process that takes into account thecommon transfer processes between each function.’QUESTIONS1. What should an ideal design of an event center be able to do?2. What are the problems seen as major defects of the hub layout?3. What would be your recommended changes to the layout?4. Sketch out a layout for an event center that would work better than the existing one.