As a facility manager, it’s critical to ensure the utmost security of your facility, including its inventory, assets, equipment and personnel. Usually, security features in facility management software help organizations keep track of their facility safety.

A facility security plan is one aspect of facilities management that provides proper maintenance and security to all facilities.

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What This Article Covers:

• Key Elements
• How To Develop a Plan
• Conclusion

Key Elements

Before starting, you need to consider several factors, such as the number of personnel, the activities conducted inside the building and the number of facilities involved. However, you should make a few critical inquiries to yourself throughout the process of formulating such a plan. The following guidelines are a basis for developing an all-encompassing facility security plan agreeable to all stakeholders.

A facility security plan is not a straightforward document. It includes minute details about the facility, its operations and personnel.

As we mentioned, no two facility security plans will be the same. However, you should consider these essential elements while building your plan.

Facility Profile

The facility profile should include a description of the facility that touches on the following:

• Utilities such as electricity, water, gas and communications.
• Up-to-date facility schematics and construction documentation.
• Mission and critical services performed at the facility like administration, operations center, classified information and continuity of operations site.

Roles and Responsibilities

Identify the relevant team members and detail the responsibilities of each position in terms of security. Determine who is responsible for creating and approving different tasks for the plan.

Include an occupant emergency program or plans and any applicable memoranda of understanding (MOU) as well as contacts for all first-responders and support organizations responsible for securing the facility (e.g., local law enforcement, security organizations and building management).

Risk Management Strategy

Use the risk management details to list and rank the dangers to the building, tenant organizations and activities, and then provide a synopsis of the measures taken to counteract them. Provide details on the possible acceptable consequences as part of your risk management strategy.

Security Countermeasures

Explain the current and future security measures, including floor plans you implement to deal with all identified threats. Keep the countermeasures as flexible as possible to adapt to a higher or lower security posture depending on the nature of the threat.

Maintenance, Repair and Testing Procedures

Offer a comprehensive breakdown of what the operator and the manufacturer need to do to keep security countermeasures in working order. The ISC Facility Security Level Determination Matrix is a helpful tool to determine the facility security level of your building. Outline the security testing measures you need to implement for the corresponding level of security for your facility.

Incident Response Management and Procedures

Clearly define the procedures you need to carry out in the case of a security breach or other time-sensitive emergency. Mention the following:

1. When problems arise, how do employees let management know?
2. How do emergency personnel and anyone working inside the facility learn about a situation, whether it’s unfolding currently or has already occurred? What kind of warning will they receive if there is a change in the facility’s security policy?
3. What measures do you and your employees need to take after the incident response is finished so that normal operations can resume?
4. Is there a specific list of people who can see these confidential files?

Employee Training

Ensure the facility security plan runs well by developing a training strategy for all workers. Participants will get familiar with the facility security plan while being placed in realistic, high-stakes situations that force them to make split-second judgments under pressure.

The drills help identify blind spots in the plan and broaden participants’ understanding. Coordinate table-top exercises, drills and full-scale exercises with the requirements of the occupant emergency plan.

Program Review

Ultimately, the facility security plan is the responsibility of the facility security committee and/or upper management. These bodies have the right and the duty to alter or supplement the program as they see fit to meet the occupants’ needs and constraints. Perform a program assessment to test its effectiveness at least annually.

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How To Develop a Plan

Since all facilities are unique in their operations, there is no one-size-fits-all approach to formulating a facility security plan.

When developing a facility security plan, it’s important to be aware of the hazards that could endanger the company’s employees, infrastructure and data. A risk management process’s primary function is to assess and categorize the effects of potential outcomes.

When your organization conducts a thorough risk assessment, it will know if the present countermeasures are enough to address or mitigate the identified threats or if they require more stringent procedural, programmatic or physical security measures.

The Methodology

Any approved method of risk management can be helpful in the risk assessment. The methodology should be:

• Credible: It evaluates the threat, vulnerability and consequences of specific acts.
• Reproducible: It yields the same or similar results when applied by different security professionals.
• Defensible: It provides sufficient justification for deviation from the baseline.
• Replicable: You can use it repeatedly with little to no variation in results.

You should include the criteria for determining the required level of protection to minimize security risks in the methodology and steps to decrease risk to an acceptable level. It’s important to follow these steps so that the process really works.

In the following sections, we’ll go over some of the most crucial elements of this process.

Threat Assessment

The term “threat assessment” describes the process of detecting and analyzing entities, activities or occurrences (natural or artificial) that possess or suggest the capacity to harm or destroy assets.

A threat assessment considers the whole scope of possible threats, such as those caused by nature, people, terrorists, accidents and so on, for a certain facility or location. You can gather information about possible threats from various sources, including federal, state and municipal governments, private security firms, and intelligence agencies’ own reports and assessments.

You can use this report in tandem with other threat assessments and data local to the organization or place, or use it to establish a baseline hazard level if current data and intelligence resources are not easily available.

When carrying out a threat assessment, consider several resources and dangers. In the case of natural hazards, you can check historical data and future trend analyses about the frequency or recurrence of natural catastrophes to evaluate the probability of the given danger. Examples of such natural calamities include tornadoes, hurricanes, floods, fires and earthquakes.

Consequence (Criticality) Assessment

A consequence assessment calculates or analyzes an event, incident or occurrence’s potential or actual ramifications. By establishing the importance of the facility’s objectives and goals, you can better design a proper safety strategy.

Establish the facility security level using information from the consequence assessment and analyzing facility data, including population, square footage, mission-related information and so on.

This is then amended in line with the impartial, documented and defensible appraisal to address a specific unwanted event and the organization’s ability to continue its mission should an event occur. The process of prioritizing scarce resources may benefit from the findings of consequence analysis.

Vulnerability Assessment

Evaluate a system’s vulnerability after establishing that actual dangers exist. Experts conduct a vulnerability assessment to determine the extent to which a given institution, asset, system, network or geographical region is vulnerable to or exposed to potential threats. Examining the entity’s physical properties of the system or network might help with this.

Assess existing countermeasures in light of the facility security level and compared to the minimum baseline level of protection standards. This will uncover any coverage gaps. You’re vulnerable if you don’t have appropriate and effective defenses. All information collected for a site-specific vulnerability assessment must be kept secure by the guidelines of the responsible organization.

Risk Assessment

The phrase “risk assessment” describes collecting relevant data and assigning weights to potential threats to rank them, create alternative solutions and inform decisions.

You’ll need up-to-date, accurate and actionable data on risks, opportunities and outcomes if you want to conduct a thorough risk assessment. This allows you to put a numerical value on things like the likelihood of an unfavorable occurrence happening and the magnitude of its potential effects.

A security firm is usually responsible for completing the risk assessment. They will decide the methodology for identifying and quantifying risks and ascertain whether or not the facility meets the criteria for countermeasures.

When you’ve settled on a strategy, make sure everyone is on the same page. Plan the installation and maintenance around the business and submit all necessary paperwork in advance. Before implementation, share the new rules or procedures with staff members to minimize disruptions.

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Conclusion

A facility security plan is an integral part of facilities management. It ensures that everything under the roof of a facility is protected in case of unforeseen circumstances. It’s essential to understand potential risks to your personnel, assets, equipment and machines to formulate a security program and save millions of dollars in damages in case of unpredictable situations.

How can a facility security plan benefit your facility? Let us know in the comments below!