One part of the EPIC System™ is the Emergency Operations Center. Instead of recreating the wheel, EPIC has aligned with Alert Technologies out of California who have developed a "best of breed" operations manager.
The founder of Alert Technologies, James K. Paulson, while performing emergency management in the public sector, saw the need for better automation tools to manage the tremendous amount of information, resources, and actions that are involved with managing the response to an emergency. Having used the "whiteboard" and "telephone" approach, Jim knew that there were more efficient and effective ways to manage the response to emergency situations by using the power of software and the connectivity of the Internet. Hence, in 1996, Jim founded Alert Technologies and started to develop the OpsCenter software product engineered from real life emergency response experiences.
OpsCenter has been developed by a team of individuals with over 100 years of emergency management experience. The team worked closely with software technology experts who know how to create practical, usable applications software. OpsCenter's rich user-oriented functionality reflects the unusual dynamics of this team. Alert Technologies has to date invested over 30 people-years into the development of OpsCenter.
Large and small organizations have embraced OpsCenter for its ability to manage the real-time information sharing, immediate communications, and action tracking requirements of managing emergencies. Furthermore, OpsCenter's modern, three-tier architecture provides the best possible platform for this type of application and ensures its long-term viability as a technological solution.
Some users for the Operations Center are: the US Army, Colorado State Patrol, Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport Fire & Police, Alaska Railroads, Cisco Systems and most recently Visa.
