Early October, 2008: Operations Plan and Manual

Here is were it initially gets a little difficult. You see, the TSA Order is really just a book of all the rules, regulations and specifics. It really does not lay out a plan for you. But, like I mentioned previously, TSA did provide us with an initial check-list, so this was helpful in getting ourselves facing in the right direction so to speak. So, based off my readings of the Order several times, I knew I would need to create the entire screening program from scratch. This is the only time in the project were my background in operations really came in handy. Though the overall task was difficult, it was rather easy for me at this point to start to imagine in my mind how this whole project was going to start to "flow" from a day to day operational point-of-view, as well as the certification process overall. But the really difficult part was taking all the information I had gathered from the book, all of my own operational ideas and try to bring them all together for the overall program and in a operations manual! As a result, I am starting to sweat at this point. It was all just a bunch of information and ideas I had to bring together into an actual plan.

Here are a few of the things I need to create for my Operational Plan: ( I have decided to omit this part for now, until I receive the O.K. from the TSA.)

facility map including surrounding areas
facility description of daily operations/type of business
facility escape route/plan in the situation we discover a incendiary device in our cargo including a meeting location for all employees. we chose a close-by fire station
facility class room training/testing procedures.... we will get to that later
on-the-job training (OJT) plan and logs
i created a fake incendiary device out of an old lap top battery for purposes of on-the-job-training
i created a facility plan for the designated screening area, which is off limits to anyone other then your employees who have been vetted by the TSA.

These are just a few things that I had to create from scratch: (There is plenty more but we have to keep in mind a lot of the information is privileged therefore we can not share it)