Kenyon International

A disaster management firm streamlines worldwide team communications and coordination with the 3n mass notification system

Kenyon International Emergency Services, Inc. is a full-service disaster management firm specializing in contingency planning, disaster management response and recovery, identification of human remains and personal effects, training, family assistance, memorials, and humanitarian services. Kenyon has been enlisted to aid in disaster relief and support for incidents such as the Florida hurricanes of September 2004, disposition of personal effects and family assistance for airplane crashes, large-scale disaster recovery after the Asian tsunami in December 2004, and, most recently, recovery operations for the State of Louisiana after Hurricane Katrina.

Challenges

Handling a disaster poses two key challenges: obtaining a response from team members and getting the team on location as soon as possible. As a crisis-management company, Kenyon International required a system capable of immediately distributing information and delivering instructions when called upon for assistance. Kenyon faced the following challenges:

• Slow, manual call-out processes. Prior to using the 3n system, Kenyon used a manual call-out process, making individual phone calls to each team member on their home, cell, and work phones. This process involved countless hours to handle the largely ineffective task of making multiple phone calls.
• Disasters of varying size and scale. Kenyon needed a system that was highly scalable, able to match any size disaster, and capable of handling simultaneous incidents in multiple locations.
• Challenges communicating with team members globally. Most importantly, Kenyon needed a way to communicate with the more than one thousand members of its disaster response teams located around the world. With offices in the U.S., England, Australia, and Singapore supporting operations around the world, international dialing capabilities, multi-language options, and delivery to multiple devices were a must.

Solution

In part, Kenyon's promise to clients includes the ability to respond immediately to a disaster and to have the bandwidth to handle simultaneous incidents. Kenyon was able to accelerate its response to the Asian Tsunami of 2004 by leveraging the power of the 3n mass notification system to call first responders into action immediately. On December 26, the same day the tsunami struck, Kenyon deployed a small team of relief workers to the area, arriving in Thailand on December 27. After assessing the situation, Kenyon rapidly increased its number of team members to about 100, including forensic scientists, embalmers, funeral directors, IT specialists and administrative support. In the eight months while in Thailand, Kenyon deployed over 250 people to support the recovery efforts.

Results

• Streamlined communication and coordination efforts. Using the 3n mass notification system significantly improved the speed with which Kenyon is able to communicate during a crisis, enhancing their ability to coordinate relief efforts across the globe.
• Ability to react immediately to incidents requiring coordination of global team members. With its international dialing capabilities, the 3n mass notification system enables Kenyon to reach all team members globally within minutes via all contact devices including cell phone, home phone, PDA, pager, fax and Instant Messenger, allowing them to react instantaneously to an incident regardless of location.
• Better visibility into team member availability. To aid in its reporting efforts, Kenyon maximizes its communication response rates by tracking confirmation of message receipt. This unique two-way functionality allows users to know exactly who is available and ready for action.
• Freeing up of resources. What took days to accomplish before with a manual call-out process, now takes only minutes and frees up valuable resources to deal with the incident itself.