SDM - May 2008 - (Page 64)

FIRE ALARM SYSTEMS: STATE OF THE MARKET Which Vertical Markets Do You Think Will Offer the Greatest Potential for Sales in the Next 12 Months? “We’re experiencing continued strength in the institutional school markets. We have a large contract right now with a VA hospital. In our Florida market, the growth is going to come from the multi-tenant dwellings because of the code they’ve already had in place. In all cases in New Jersey, the work is retrofit, and in Florida, it is almost exclusively retrofit work.” — Richard Haig Jr., Haig Service Corp., Green Brook, N.J. “Apartment and condo and health care — we don’t see any government stuff coming to us right now. A lot of higher education projects, and we’re seeing a lot of upgrades of older educational facilities being done also.” — Mitch Brozik, Secure US, Morgantown, W.Va. “Where we’ve had good strength is in retail, medical and educational development.” — Ken Hoffmann, DynaFire Inc., Casselberry, Fla. “The educational market is doing very well. K-12, secondary education and college campuses are very active. If you look at the health care industry, that’s another bright spot in terms of both the hospital clinic systems as well as assisted living or elder care-type facilities. There’s been good activity in the retail segment. Right now, the hotel-motel industry is going very well.” — Jeff Hendrickson, Silent Knight by Honeywell, Maple Grove, Minn. “The retail market is just booming. Better assisted living or health care is definitely a huge thing just starting to get tapped.” — John Maccone, Fire-Lite Alarms, Northford, Conn. “College campuses, universities, schools, large commercial locations where they need voice evacuation. I think the residential markets for carbon monoxide detection are going to do very well.” — Scott Sturgess, ADI, Melville, N.Y. “The spaces that are least susceptible [to economic slowdowns] in the short term are health care and education.” — Tom Potosnak, System Sensor, St. Charles Ill. that have impacted delivery of UL 864 9th edition approvals for all manufacturers in this industry,” explains Tom Hauder, product marketing manager, fire protection products for Bosch Security Systems Inc., Fairport, N.Y. “UL’s issues have caused some products from various vendors to be late to market. “This delay has impacted sales growth in the industry overall, as some customers are postponing purchasing decisions until the systems receive listings for UL 864 9th Edition,” Hauder declares. PHOTO COURTESY OF SILENT KNIGHT Joe Mesich of Advanced Technical Services works on a panel at the Little Sisters of the Poor assisted living facility in Gallup, N.M. “As the AHJ community begins to accept other listing agencies beyond UL, the flow of new products to the industry should increase greatly.” TRENDS & ISSUES Just as the IT influence has been felt in the video surveillance and access control markets, it also is having an influence on the fire alarm market. Haig is seeing increasing participation of IT managers in fire and security systems jobs. “We are finding the fire alarm is moving from the facilities manager to the IT manager, so you’re getting a techno-geek instead of a nuts-and-bolts guy,” Haig observes. “There are pluses and minuses to both. “We’re struggling with IT a little bit because the IT guys tend to geek it up,” he laments. “They try to get really technical about it, almost too technical, and many times fire alarms and security systems are not really rocket science. They’re code-driven — it’s compliance, it’s not reinventing the wheel.” ■ At the same time, Haig bemoans shorter credit terms from vendors. “I think that openly hurts the industry, given that most are small businesses, not large well-funded companies,” he emphasizes. Another complaint is product availability. “They seem also to have scaled back manufacturing so inventory is almost built to order; we are frequently waiting for equipment, and quality control remains an issue,” he comments. A possible reason for product delays is attributed to Underwriters Laboratories (UL). “In 2007, UL publicly acknowledged past issues Silent Knight’s Software Suite: Access programming, event history, detector status and more! Sponsored by SILENT KNIGHT 64 May 2008 http://W.Va

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of SDM - May 2008

SDM - May 2008 Contents Editor’s Angle Exclusive ISC West Coverage Stanley Convergent’s Newest Acquisition Cisco Introduces New IP Cameras, Expands Physical Security Solution Portfolio Ionit Technologies Partners with Walgreens; Places DVR Systems in Stores Nationwide Pennsylvania-Based Security System Providers Merge Custom Home Electronics Distributor Inks Distribution Agreement Security and the Law Integration Intelligence 18th Annual SDM 100: Double Digits Fire Systems: State of the Market Addressable Fire Control Systems Storage: Where Can We Put All This? Central Station Managed Access Technology at Work 5-Minute Tech Quiz Technology Solutions & Skills Security NetWorkings SDM Marketplace Classifieds

SDM - May 2008

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