By Lisa Korklan, VP of Marketing
Crowded homes filled with delicious aromas from the oven, lit with the glow of candles and warmth from the fireplace. Stores fully stocked from floor to ceiling. Thanksgiving signals the beginning of the holiday season. Although the potential for a fire is far from our thoughts, we really have many reasons to appreciate people who work in the fire and life safety professions. Perhaps we should all be most thankful for the folks who monitor and dispatch alarms to first responders, saving lives and property.
Have you considered their essential contributions which are often overlooked? With never-ending technology advances, their responsibilities continue to grow. They monitor a whole range of digital information including access control, video cameras, HVAC, emergency communications, fire and life safety alarms and other building management systems. Sometimes they sit at their consoles or they may also be mobile, but one thing is certain: the safety and security of their facility depends on their ability to recognize and filter out the most important alarms.
Technology exponentially improves the speed and amount of information that can be delivered to the dispatchers. but it also exponentially increases their workload. Fortunately, the flexibility of a well-designed alarm management software system can prevent operator overload in a wide variety of ways.
Helping a busy dispatcher recognize critical fire alarms amid the troubles and supervisories is possible with the right software system. Sending non-fire alarm events to the most appropriate responders helps to ensure that fire alarms are easily recognized by the dispatchers when they happen.
For inspections, construction, known storms and other situations that cause constant trouble signals, a well-designed software system can enable dispatchers to temporarily suppress those signals to prevent them from overwhelming a high priority fire or life safety event.
When dispatchers do receive a fire alarm, they shouldn’t need to click on many screens, decipher arcane codes, or waste essential time trying to figure out what, when and where the signal is coming from. It should all be on a single, easy to read screen with maps, icons and dispatch information, right at their fingertips because with a fire, every moment counts. Other capabilities such as emergency communications, a full library of graphics and audibles, group acknowledge and real time notes all help these dedicated dispatchers, who often work on holidays so that we can all safely enjoy ours.
If your facility’s fire alarm dispatch system is difficult to operate and overloads their already demanding work, thank them by installing a Keltron LS 7000 Alarm Management System. They’ll be more accurate, faster and less stressed and your facility will improve its ability to respond quickly to fire and life safety events. Call or email us to learn more →
By Denise Pappas, Executive Director
As temperatures begin to drop, I make a mental note of all the things I need to do to get ready for winter – fall cleaning, raking leaves, and winterizing the car. And, one of the most important things I do in the fall is change the batteries in our home smoke detectors.
That got me to thinking of what fire and life safety managers need to do to be sure that their fire alarm management systems are up-to-date and properly maintained for the winter season and into next year.
Has it been awhile since you have looked at your existing fire alarm management equipment as a total solution? Has your facility grown to require more information that you now get from your fire and life safety detectors and devices? Maybe you get too many false alarms or late-night calls and have been meaning to find a way to update and streamline your systems.
There are three major issues that, without updates and sufficient maintenance can contribute to less-than-ideal monitoring, dispatching and reporting of fire alarms at your facility. If you can identify with any of these situations, perhaps it’s time to upgrade or retrofit your systems.
Many campuses and multi-building facilities have a variety of brands and models of fire alarm control panels that either transmit signals to more than one receiving system or provide limited point ID information or none at all. While Keltron does not manufacture fire alarm control panels, we provide interfaces to 99% of them, enabling our customers to view all of their information in a single system.
Telephone lines and other older signaling technologies are becoming increasingly unreliable from both age and wear. Many are no longer code compliant as primary signaling systems. Keltron’s systems’ ability to receive data from more than one communications technology enables our customers to migrate from old technologies to more modern, faster and more reliable Ethernet/IP, radio, or cellular.
And then there is the dispatcher experience; these essential and very busy staff members must often look at multiple monitors with limited information, resulting in slowdowns, frustration, and burnout. With Keltron’s systems, the dispatcher can focus on one screen with a consistent look and feel in a single view for all incoming alarms, giving the dispatcher detailed information on how to respond to the alarm each and every time. This results in reduced operator overload, improved accuracy and easy training with a system optimized to on-site multi-building alarm monitoring.
Upgrading with Keltron’s solutions offers a multitude of benefits including improved situational awareness, faster and more accurate dispatch and response, efficient use of existing equipment and resources, and just more peace of mind.
Whether you are thinking about retrofitting or upgrading your fire alarm monitoring systems to Keltron, visit our website at www.keltroncorp.com or call us at 781-894-8710. We’re here to help you with your fall “to do” list!
