Howard Cooper (asker) Oct 2, 2009:

I'm probably going to go with "emergency procedures." The exact meaning of the original is undivinable based on available context, so it is a reasonable generic solution. Even better would be a replacement term that can mean both "procedure" and "personnel/chain of command".

Philippe Lascourrèges Sep 28, 2009:

Panic Button... a joke we got I worked with and wrote a lot of flip charts, job guides, safety sheets for at least 30 years in aviation, nuclear, engineering fields, world wide, and we used to classify troubles in grading terms -CWE-.
Let the "warning" be the latest step for a worker to troubleshoot smoothly the problem, before shouting a "Sauve qui peut" in emergency.

Sorry if this graduation is not understood

B D Finch Sep 28, 2009:

Emergency or panic? In response to Philippe. I'm afraid that your understanding of "emergency" is not the general understanding. Your hierarchy of "caution", "warning" and "emergency" is just wrong. Of course, an organisation can adopt their own in-house terminology, and I suspect that is where you got these "definitions" from.

I'd define an emergency as when usual routines need to be abandoned in order to focus on and act to deal with an urgent and dangerous situation. Escape might be part of this, but the emergency services don't generally deal with emergencies by running away.

Philippe Lascourrèges Sep 28, 2009:

Emergency I don't like the term "emergency" that means there is no more thing to do than, for instance, escape or push the 'Panic Button"...
"Warning" is set when we must act for troubleshooting and "Caution" recommends to monitor the process.
In the case, I guess, the worker must call the staff officer and explain.