Business Emergency Operations Center (BEOC) - A Model for Inter- Agency and Inter-Sector Communication and Collaboration

摘要

Inter-agency and inter-sector communication and collaboration experimentation during emergency management response is the focus area of this paper. Since 2007 the New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT) has been working in collaboration with the Armament Research Development and Engineering Center (ARDEC) at Picatinny Arsenal and Northern Command (Northcom) experimenting with, a public sector/private sector engagement model called the Business Emergency Operations Center (BEOC). The BEOC is a multi-dimensional construct using qualitative research techniques to identify factors that enable enterprise agility and adaptability. It is a physical and virtual construct that can be actualized during a catastrophic event as well as tested during training exercises; these exercises are described in this paper. Most importantly the BEOC is a research program designed to investigate inter-sector and inter-agency collaborations during response scenarios to catastrophic and extreme events. It is this confluence of research (theory) and exercises (praxis) that is explicated. The paper concludes by positing a framework based upon the results of research to date using the BEOC model as an integral component of the framework. The relationship of the evolving framework to the process dimension of command and control is weaved into the overall explication.