PSIJan2017

Life safety maintenance awareness drops
according to European survey
A 2016 study of European Installers carried out by Hochiki
Europe has found that the number of building owners and
managers unaware of the legal requirements surrounding life
safety system maintenance has halved. The company’s 2015
research found two in five, or 46%, had no awareness,
however that figure has dropped to one in five, or 22%, in the
past twelve months.
The study also showed an increase in the number of
customers installers visited with up to date fire detection and
emergency lighting logbooks. In 2015, two fifths of customers
(40%) failed to have an up to date fire detection logbook. This
figure now stands at less than a third (30%). The number
failing to have an up to date emergency lighting logbook has
dropped even further, falling from over two thirds (67%) in
2015 to under half (48%) in 2016.
Despite the improvements in these key areas of
maintenance, the number of building owners and managers
experiencing false alarms showed little change, dropping just
one per cent, from 29% in 2015 to 28% in 2016.
Equally, the number of installers encountering buildings
where customers had changed the use of their spaces, but
failed to adjust their life safety systems accordingly dropped
only slightly, reducing from just over half (55%) to exactly half
(50%). More worryingly, this year failing to update the system
correctly was the most common issue installers found when
visiting a customer site.
The top five fire maintenance issues encountered by
installers in 2016 were: change of building/room use without
correctly altering the fire system (50%), inadequate logbook
records (44%), the original installer didn’t install the best
system for the environment (40%), detectors need cleaning
(33%) and detectors need replacing (27%).
The top five emergency lighting maintenance issues
encountered by installers in 2016 were listed as: broken/faulty
lamps (44%), inadequate logbook records (42%), inadequate
emergency lighting signage (39%), batteries not charged in
emergency lighting units (35%) and inadequate lux levels
(25%).
Tracy Kirk, General Manager of Sales and Marketing for
Hochiki Europe, commented: “Our annual study shows a
marked improvement in both understanding and meeting
maintenance requirements among building owners and
managers. This suggests that, as an industry, our efforts to
educate and train those responsible for maintaining life safety
systems is proving successful.
“That said, we acknowledge there are still some serious
gaps to continue addressing, and while these are encouraging
results we cannot be complacent.”
www.psimagazine.co.uk
THE BOTTOM LINE
IN ASSOCIATION WITH CSL
The interview that gets
the facts from the top
This month Simon Banks looks
through the most memorable quotes
from the Bottom Line interviews of
the last 12 months.
“Since I was an engineer, the skill set required has changed completely and I
can only see there being an ever-increasing lack of relevant skilled engineers to
support the shift change in the industry.”
Anthony King, Managing Director of Kings Security Systems
“Secured by Design includes the term “Police Preferred Specification” and it is
the specification which critically has police support through meeting the latest
standard.”
Alan McInnes, Director of Secured by Design
“We’ve just completed an upgrade to our alarm monitoring systems across the
entire estate to give us better protection against burglary. It’s helped us reduce
the number of false alarms and key holder attendances.”
Lee Clark, UK Profit Protection Manager at Matalan
“The 5-10% of businesses that request a connection to an ARC normally have a
property with a high risk. With more sophisticated fire alarm systems, service
providers are able to introduce more comprehensive services such as remote
monitoring of a site.”
Ian Moore, CEO of the Fire Industry Association (FIA)
“NSI Gold approval is the hallmark of integrity, expertise and professionalism in
the industry. Clients and specifiers recognise and value this, and NSI Approved
Companies rightly continue to be the principal providers of choice.”
Richard Jenkins CEO of the National Security Inspectorate (NSI)
“Organisations such as NSI/BAFE/SSAIB need to lobby Government, Fire &
Rescue Services and Insurers for tighter controls to ensure accredited
companies carry out work, especially where lives and property are concerned.”
Mark Rothwell, Managing Director of Black Box Security
“We are big believers in Social Media activity. Keeping in contact with, reacting
to and maintaining awareness of local and industry news is important. This year
we have won over £15,000 worth of business as a direct result of Social Media
activity.”
Cindy Newnham, General Manager of Lifeline Alarm Systems
“Put simply, we have a huge skills gap in our industry. Finding talented young
people is already a challenge and this shortage is likely to increase over the
coming years if nothing is done. We have to change in order to attract talent to
our sector and investing in Apprenticeships is an essential part of this.”
Pat Allen, lead employer on Trailblazer Employer Group, Director at Abel
Alarm Company & Chairman of the FSA
“I think anyone that doesn’t embrace visual verification is living in the wrong
century! Think of the huge time and cost savings to the Police and the Fire
Brigade from reduced false alarms and confirmed CCTV.”
Simon Gordon, Chairman of Facewatch
“Offering this upgrade from PSTN to DualCom DigiAir provides a faster and more
secure method of communication to keep our clients monitored without the
issues of PSTN line failures.”
Vince Naran, Managing Director of National Security Systems Group
“Machine to Machine and the Internet of Things have several definitions but the
way we see it is that M2M was the basic communication between machines.
With IoT, we’re moving to a whole series of interconnected parts to a solution.”
Cyril Deschanel, Head of Northern Europe at Vodafone Internet of Things
(IoT)
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