MCG Consulting Solutions has worked with over 150 fire rescue agencies over the firm’s 15-year history, conducting studies of staffing, management, standard of coverage, and feasibility studies, among others.
Click on a subject area below to learn more about the services we provide:
Master and strategic plans
Develop long-range master and strategic plans to guide planning efforts for fire rescue services as communities grow.
Comprehensive planning by working with local and regional stakeholders to forecast growth in the community and surrounding region, and how it will impact the need for fire rescue services in the future.
The planning process begins with the analysis of current capabilities and builds to allow for a phased process of change.
Station location planning
Plan station locations effectively through detailed GIS analysis of forecasted travel times.
By showing where service level gaps and overlaps exist, the analysis is able to provide a clear picture of current capabilities and whether they reflect the geography of emergency call demand.
Working with city and regional resources, as well as fire department personnel, allows for station planning to align with areas of higher risk and population densities in the community.
Staffing analysis
Determine staffing needs through an in depth understanding service needs, workloads, and alternative ways to manage work.
Analysis of fire service staffing needs must take into account community characteristics, workloads, and service philosophies. The evaluation of these staffing needs should be based on:
- • Service needs
- • Workloads
- • Time committed to emergency scenes
- • Opportunities for alternative service delivery such as civilianization and regionalization
The key important figure to consider is whether there is adequate availability to meet performance standards and effectively mitigate emergency scenes.
Scheduling and deployment
Find the most effective way to deploy your resources with the right shift schedule.
Ensuring your Fire Service personnel are scheduled and deployed to provide the most effective and efficient service is critical to meeting community needs.
Our advanced analysis will examine a number of shift schedule configurations to determine the best way to meet the needs of your community and ensure that personnel are being utilized effectively.
Standard of coverage
What are the true capabilities of your Fire Service? Are there appropriate performance measures in place?
These studies examine community risk, existing service delivery, community expectations and performance goals, demand for services, concentration of resources, and reliability of emergency response in order to develop a document that illustrates the current capabilities of the fire rescue system and opportunities to improve services to meet industry standards for your community.
Regionalization and consolidation feasibility
Determine the feasibility of establishing a regional or consolidated Fire Service agency
There are a multitude of factors involved with the decision to move forward with a regional approach to providing regional fire protection or paramedic services. Our sophisticated analytical models will provide precise answers on every aspect of its feasibility:
- • Detailed costs associated with the consolidated regional/agency, including both startup and operating expenses
- • Agency organizational structure
- • The staffing needed to establish the agency at each function and classification
- • Governance and cost allocation
- • A comprehensive plan for implementation
Management studies
Effective management of fire protection and emergency medical resources is more critical today than ever.
Management systems require fire service administrators and managers to be leaders internally and within the community, impacting the need for:
- • Strategic planning
- • Community engagement
- • Effective communications
- • Policies and procedure
- • Performance planning and monitoring
- • Mentoring and organizational development
- • Continuous improvement
These areas need to be addressed because the community and today’s workforce expect it.
Contract compliance audits
Are contract communities getting the services that they are paying for? That they need?
Contract service can be a useful and cost-effective strategy for many communities, often allowing them to obtain more services than they would otherwise be able to afford. However, effective contracts should include:
- • A structure that meets the needs of the community – not the contract entity.
- • Accountability for meeting contracted service levels.
- • Overhead costs that are reasonable and verifiable.
- • Transparent and easily understood reasons for cost increases.
- • A focus on performance to ensure that expected service levels are met.