Guide to Explaining AIIMS

An Introduction to the Australasian Inter-Service Incident Management System (AIIMS)

AIIMS: The essentials

• Australian incident management system, used for the command, control, and coordination of emergency and non-emergency incidents 
• Provides a common management framework for organizations working in emergency management roles and/or responding to non-emergency situations
• Developed in the 1980s; introduced in the early 1990s
• Modelled on the U.S. National Interagency Incident Management System (NIIMS) 

What is AIIMS?

The Australasian Inter-service Incident Management System (AIIMS) is a nationally recognized incident management structure. Though used primarily by fire, land management, and other emergency agencies, the system provides all organizations a common framework to manage any and all incidents (natural, industrial, or civil), be they emergencies or important non-emergency activities, like major sporting events, large cultural exhibitions, and big business conferencesⁱ. 

Fundamentally, AIIMS enables multiple agencies who are engaged in incident response or planning to seamlessly integrate their resources (personnel, facilities, equipment, and communications) and activities under a common framework. In practice since the early 1990s, the system is based on the following principles:

• Management by objectives. The Incident Control function, in tandem with the Incident Management team as a whole (see appendix), will determine desired incident outcomes for the purpose of ensuring that all responders understand the direction taken during the response.
• Functional management. AIIMS lays out four, broad functional areas: Control, Planning, Operations, and Logistics (more below). This organization structure is intended to give full representation to all vital management and information functions, though the composition of the Incident Management team varies depending on the incident in question.
• Span of control. A key AIIMS attribute is scalability: for some incidents, a full-scale response will not be necessary, but for others, it will. In this sense, span of control refers to the number of groups or individuals that can be successfully supervised by one person.
• Flexibility. AIIMS can be applied to all hazards and used by all agencies.
• Unity of command. Responders must work to achieve one set of common objectives. Similarly, individuals should report to only one supervisorⁱⁱ. 

The four functional areas of AIIMS 

AIIMS comprises four functional areas. Together, they make the organizational hierarchy depicted below:

1. Control involves management of all activities necessary for the resolution of an incident.
2. Planning involves the collection, analysis, and dissemination of information and the development of plans for the resolution of an incident.
3. Operations involves the tasking and application of resources to achieve resolution of an incident.
4. Logistics involves the acquisition and provision of human and physical resources, facilities, services, and materials to support the achievement of incident objectives. 

Source: Managing information in the disaster coordination centre: lessons and opportunities

Fig 1. The four functional areas of AIIMS

Source: Managing information in the disaster coordination centre: lessons and opportunities

Key terms and their meanings

AIIMS also uses popular incident response terminology, like control, command, and coordination. Here are the relevant definitions:

• Control: The overall direction of emergency management activities in an emergency situation. Control relates to situations and operates horizontally across organizations. 
• Command: The internal direction of the members and resources of an organization’s roles and tasks by agreement or in accordance with relevant legislation. Command operates vertically within an organization.
• Coordination: Bringing together of organizations and other resources to support an emergency management response. It involves the systematic acquisition and application of resources in an emergency situation.

How AIIMS can improve your response efforts

So why does AIIMS matter? And how can AIIMS bolster your agency’s incident response efforts? For starters, organizations today face a growing number of ever-more complex incidents, operations which to be successful often involve cooperation and coordination with peer organizations. 

Inter-agency, inter-service cooperation isn’t simple though. In the case of disasters, multiple agencies-federal, state, and local public safety, law enforcement, emergency response, emergency medical and related personnel agencies, and authorities-are likely to respond all at once, often with overlapping jurisdictional boundariesⁱⁱⁱ. What’s more, each of those responding agencies brings with it a unique set of competencies, experiences, systems, even terminology. Melding everything together, especially in the height of an emergency, is an operational nightmare that often impedes the effectiveness of the response.

AIIMS, on the other hand, is nationally-recognized throughout Australia and widely used-not just in fire management but in emergency services more broadly. From its inception, the system adopted many of the incident management principles first presented in the U.S. Incident Command System (ICS), from which AIIMS is largely derived, and developed them for the Australian context^iv. 

In this regard, a key benefit of AIIMS is the fact that it enables supra-coordination, “the better formulation of emergency management arrangements at the State and National levels” (as depicted)^v.

As such, it provides the requisite standardization to support inter-service coordination, for virtually any kind of incident. Specifically, the system concretizes a number of arrangements, so you understand what your peer organizations are doing, and they know what you’re doing as well. 

AIIMS designates roles and responsibilities for personnel involved in incident response, as well as formalizes a cohesive chain of command, comprehensible to people in your organization as well as responders in other agencies. Clarifying roles from the planning phase onward, as AIIMS does, helps to promote a safer working environment during an incident. 

Moreover, the organizational structure AIIMS lays out is flexible and scalable, which makes it extremely adaptable to most incident types, complexities, sizes, and environments remember even non-operational personnel are accounted for. In sum, AIIMS provides the following organizational benefits:

• Defines organizational functions, communication flows, roles, and responsibilities
• Enables standardization of technology
• Promotes effective resource management
• Adaptability, scalability, and widespread adoption contribute to operational efficiency
• Takes a risk management approach
• Facilitates comprehensive planning
• Furnishes a competency-based approach to filling positions^vi

The future of AIIMS?

A final point: AIIMS goes a long way toward improving the efficiency of your incident response. It’s a scalable, flexible system that’s been widely adopted not just in emergency management but in wider industry; see, for instance, the increasing popularity of AIIMS in the oil and gas industry as a framework for dealing with incident response. 

That being said, the incident management structure alone won’t fix everything. To be successful in your response efforts, you need to layer AIIMS onto other incident response best practices: flow of accurate information, identification, allocation, and deployment of the best possible human, physical, and fiscal resources and systems, and lastly a commitment to accurate recording and reporting. 

Appendix: The Incident Management team

Source: Queensland Coastal Contingency Action Plan, Department of Transport and Main Roads

Citations

i. Australian Fire Authority Council: AIIMS-4 Principles Online Course. Available at https://www.afac.com.au/docs/default-source/poster-archive/afacplaceholder---copy-(7).pdf.

ii. Department of Transport and Main Roads: Queensland Coastal Contingency Action Plan: 2017. Available at https://www.msq.qld.gov.au/-/media MSQInternet/MSQFiles/Home/Environment/Contingency-plans/qccap.pdf?la=en.

iii. Teams might also include hazardous materials responders, urban search and rescue assets, community emergency response teams, anti-terrorism units, special weapons and tactics teams, bomb squads, emergency management officials, municipal agencies, in addition to diverse and sundry private organizations. James Carafano, Preparing Responders to Respond: The Challenges to Emergency Preparedness in the 21st Century: The Heritage Foundation. Available at https://www.heritage.org/homeland security/report/preparing-responders-respond-the-challenges-emergency-preparednessthe.

iv. Australian Fire Authority Council: The Australasian Inter-service Incident Management System: A Management System for any Emergency. Available at https://training.fema.gov/hiedu/docs/cem/comparative%20em%20-%20session%2021%20-%20handout%2021-1%20aiims%20manual.pdf

v. Ibid.

vi. Ibid.