The first line of the early-warning system was Bletchley Park, which passed top-secret Ultra information to Storey’s Gate in a very secure fashion to a few handpicked individuals through a special liaison unit. The Luftwaffe thought its encrypted communications were unbreakable. This top-grade intelligence would normally be of a highly strategic nature - the date and time of a raid, its size, the type of planes and possibly the target. A synopsis of this would be passed to Dowding directly, and not to the Bentley Priory operation’s room.

The second line of the early-warning system was made up of 50 radar stations. There were two types of complementary radar stations: long and short range. The former could pick up high-flying enemy aircraft at 30,000 feet and up to 150 miles away. The latter had a shorter range, but could pick up low-flying enemy aircraft. Both operated on pattern recognition and provided information on incoming raids. With a degree of accuracy, radar information provided enemy position, direction, height, and estimated strength. Radar crews operating both in the low and high-level stations aggregated this information. The aggregated information was phoned directly to a radar operation's command rooms or headquarters. This had a filter room where sightings and detection information could be aggregated, analyzed and organized. The information was then passed by telephone onto the filter room at Bentley Priory for further processing.

The third line of the early-warning system was made up of by the observer corps. It consisted of civilian volunteers who spotted incoming enemy aircraft through binoculars. They identified and assessed the enemy aircraft strength from 1,000 observation posts, based on the recognition of silhouettes and patterns. The corps could only track aircraft detected by the radar stations. Observer corps information was aggregated by the observer corps headquarters, which in turn was passed by telephone onto the filter room at Bentley Priory for further processing.

Together the radar stations and observer corps covered nearly ninety percent of United Kingdom's (UK) coastline.

The filter room at Bentley Priory headquarters was the communications hub that aggregated all this disparate information collected from the early warning system. Occasionally there were other sources that passed new information to Bentley Priory namely, other operations centers and pilots. All this information was integrated in real time and passed directly into the operations room.

Today the operations room doesn't exist as it was converted to into a Cold-War Operations Centre in the 1960s. The architects ripped out the operations room (that helped win the Battle of Britain) with the rationale that the operations room at Uxbridge would be preserved as a museum.

The filter room at Bentley Priory headquarters was the communications hub that aggregated all this disparate information collected from the early warning system. Occasionally there were other sources that passed new information to Bentley Priory namely, other operations centers and pilots. All this information was integrated in real time and passed directly into the operations room.

The Bentley Priory operations room was to have one of the most sophisticated real-time event models in the entire solution, specifically with an elegant user-interface. The purpose of the model was to map a visual representation of the skies above the UK. It was run by the Women of the Auxiliary Air Force (WAAFs). The map table used counters to show the location of friendly and enemy aircraft on a scaled map of the UK. The WAAFs would receive information from the filter room through headsets. As enemy planes took off in France, they were tracked and plotted onto this real-time model, reflecting every change. The counters on the glass-covered table were color-coded:

The WAAFs changed the color of all the enemy counters every five minutes from yellow to red, and then to blue. These colors corresponded to the operations room's clock, which was also color-coded (yellow, red and blue) in five-minute increments. This gave a real-time snapshot of a raid in progress, and how it was evolving.

When two stations gave positions of the same aircraft, greater reliance was placed on the accuracy. As new reports were received, a colored arrow for each raid was changed. The situation was updated so that all the information on the table was no older than fifteen minutes. As a result, the model provided a snapshot of real-time events, giving the decision-makers the information they needed to manage the movement of fighters. They could position and group fighters at the required operational heights to be most effective.

This information was then disseminated through the command structure, which divided up the country into four geographically based groups. Each group had a station and commanding air officer, and was further divided into sectors (5 to 10) with stations (headquarters) and surrounding, smaller fighter stations/airfields. The individual group and sector operations centers had many of the characteristics of Bentley Priory, with an event-tracking and decision-making environment, and were expected to have the most activity. Bentley Priory at the center saw the overall picture of events, whereas group levels saw only what pertained to them.

• The anti-aircraft command, under the army, was divided nationally into seven divisions, but linked to fighter command groups. Its primary role was to protect the aircraft manufacturing industry and support fighter command. Anti-aircraft fire was more effective in daylight than at night, as the incoming bomber streams were in closer formations. At night, the aircraft were very widely spaced, with a 1:50 chance of a hit.
• The searchlight units were closely linked to the anti-aircraft command and cooperated closely together. Both had to be well aligned to the operational centers and aware of aircraft positions and movement in the skies to avoid firing on Royal Air Force (RAF) fighters by mistake.
• The barrage balloon command operated 52 squadrons across the country, creating a barrage of huge balloons that protected towns and cities, as well as targets like industrial areas and ports. Strung by heavy cables they protected everything at ground level from the threat of low-flying dive-bombers. Set at heights of up to 5,000 feet, they would force aircraft to fly high, limiting their accuracy and bringing them within range of the anti-aircraft guns.
• The operational training units were responsible for pilot training and closely linked to Bentley Priory. These units had to be aware of pilot losses because the number of available pilots was a continual problem for Dowding. Pilot training took three months and was limited to pilots under 30. Dowding brought Allied pilots into the RAF squadrons, as well as volunteers from the Commonwealth and countries under Axis occupation.
• Air-sea rescue operations were directed to downed RAF pilots. Pilots were brought back to squadrons quickly and could be in the air the same day.
• The civilian repair operation (CRO) was an important recovery operation that was part of the fighter supply chain.