
drill carried out at the factory which does not reflect 
the  true  evacuation  process.  In  the  drill,  fire  and 
smoke are not created and most importantly, exits are 
not blocked during the fire drill at the factory. But 
exits  near  the  fire  will  be  blocked  and  halt  the 
occupants from safe egress. In Pathfinder simulation, 
in case of fire in warehouse, exits were blocked near 
fire  location  and  occupants  were  assigned  to  use 
specific  exit  route  through  waypoint  to  safe  exit. 
Pathfinder provides some extent of behavior based on 
parametric  input  from  the  data  from  survey.  The 
simulation gives the Required Safe Egress Time and 
identifies  hazardous area  in  terms of congestion in 
exits of the floors due to high density which helps 
assessing the risk. One important drawback is that, 
Pathfinder  cannot  predict  the  real  behavior  of 
occupants  in  case  of  emergency.  Behavior  of 
occupants  varies  largely  based  on  the  experience, 
training, safety culture etc. However, the Pathfinder 
simulation largely opens the scope of optimizing the 
current emergency management approach in terms of 
adopting  different  strategy  in  emergency 
preparedness, response, mitigation and recovery. To 
optimize the emergency strategy, following measures 
can be taken: 
Relocating  the  warehouse  to  some other  places 
would be the optimal choice for the management of 
the factory to avoid huge economic loss and loss of 
lives. 
The  findings  from  simulation  like  clogging, 
behavior  etc.  should  be  taken  into  consideration 
during fire drill in mitigation and prevention phase of 
emergency management. 
Quantitative risk analysis tools  may be used to 
assess the fire risks. 
The  number  of  occupants  in  2nd  and  3rd  floor 
should be reduced. 
Authority  should  engage  the  local  people, 
hospitals  and  law  enforcement  agencies  in  the 
response and recovery stage.  
There should be an incident command system at 
the factory for handling any emergency at any time 
(day or night). 
This  research  using  risk  analysis  tools  and 
Pathfinder  simulation  software  can  help  the  entire 
Readymade  garment  industries  along  with  other 
industries and any building structures  to assess the 
risk and to optimize the emergency management in 
case of fire evacuation.  
 
 
 
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 
The authors would like to express their gratitude to 
Ms  Annette  Kaalund-Jørgensen,  Capacity 
Development Advisor, Danida Fellowship Centre for 
her kind support. 
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Optimization of Egress Controls of Fire Emergency Management Plans using Agent based Simulation: A Case Study of Ready-made
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