IRELAND, Mar 16 — Today’s and tomorrow’s world is digitally joined up. Any system or service for the security monitoring of buildings and enclosed places of all kinds has to be integrated and comprehensive to compete in an ever more demanding and sophisticated market place.
Dr.
The gas detection business is increasingly being driven by legislation, against a background of increasing awareness of the risks and the knowledge that for over two decades there has been satisfactory monitoring technology
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oday’s and tomorrow’s world is digitally joined up. Any system or service for the security monitoring of buildings and enclosed places of all kinds has to be integrated and comprehensive to compete in an ever more demanding and sophisticated market place.
Dr. Lorcan Maher’s message to security companies is simple and blunt — embrace and include Gas detection and all other risks capable of being monitored electronically or risk being overtaken by new and broader spectrum systems and services based on today’s smart building and facilities management systems.
The ultimate silent intruder is gas. Undetectable except, sometimes, by the human nose or by specialized detectors. With the right sensor for that type of gas. Which could be noxious or even lethal. Or just toxic. Or flammable or even explosive. Smoke is better. Control room people can see it on screen, if there is visual monitoring. And detectors are cheap and cheerful.
Some other types of gas are not usually harmful, cause little bother. But that includes refrigerants from leaks in equipment, which are expensive to replace and leakage can lead to malfunctioning.
The key point about gas detection for security companies is that they are missing a golden opportunity, according to Dr Lorcan Maher, Managing Director of MURCO, a manufacturer of advanced gas detection equipment. "Gas detection is a fast growing and profitable business area. It is being driven by more safety and occupational health legislation in most countries and also by the sheer expense of replacing modern, environmentally friendly refrigerants in food distribution and air conditioning, again driven by tighter regulatory regimes."
Advanced gas detection today is based on highly accurate, long life electronic units, with sensors that can cover a broad spectrum of gases or target specific or difficult to detect gases. "For a security company, whether supplying and installing or offering a monitoring service, the key point is that they are networkable. Gas detection units can be incorporated into any security monitoring system, wired or wireless."
Dr. Lorcan Maher goes on to suggest that gas detection is as obvious a complementary role in any security planning and setup as, for example, smoke and temperature detection and fire prevention and alarms. "The trend for the future is already clear as these monitoring tasks are being incorporated in modern digital building management systems, which are certainly gaining a lot of ground in new building where they can be designed into the specifications at an early stage. But why should the security industry yield market share to facilities management?"
"The reason it is doing so, of course, is that security people and companies have always regarded themselves as specialists. Quite rightly, but the trouble is that in doing so they have become bound into a traditional range of risks. Yet this has all undergone what the IT jargon calls ’a paradigm shift’ with the advent of digital monitoring systems across the board, from the new generation of micro-cameras and remote monitoring over the Internet to alarm devices pre-set to call mobile phones [cellphones] or even send SMS text messages. Today’s and tomorrow’s world is digitally joined up. Any system or service for the security monitoring of buildings and enclosed places of all kinds has to be integrated and comprehensive to compete in an ever more demanding and sophisticated market place."
His message to security companies is simple and blunt — embrace and include gas detection and all other risks capable of being monitored electronically or risk being overtaken by new and broader spectrum systems and services based on today’s smart building and facilities management systems. Active security monitoring services may survive longer but with smart modern electronic systems, passive monitoring will be completely automated as part of a total facilities management type of service. "Its appeal to the customer is going to be based on that very ’integrated, electronic, all risk’ market strategy that the security industry is still spurning, possibly because it fears losing its ’specialist’ cachet," Dr Maher warns.
Is this gas detection market really that appealing or that important? Absolutely, Dr. Maher insists, pointing out that almost every building has a gas detection problem of some sort. Offices and commercial building typically have, for example, carbon monoxide in underground car parks and those valuable refrigerant gases in air conditioning or data rooms and food retailing or hotel/restaurant food storage.
Other indoor air quality pollutants most mandated under public or employee health regulations, including Carbon Dioxide and VOCs [Volatile Organic Compounds], methane or LPG in boiler rooms, cooking and heating applications. There can even be hydrogen risk in UPS battery arrays.
Industrial and municipal buildings have many problem gases such as hydrogen sulphide, ammonia, and methane in sewage treatment, chlorine and ozone in water treatment or bottling applications, ethylene in fruit storage, acetylene and oxygen for welding, solvents, alcohols and VOCs in industrial processes and CO2 in brewing and wineries. Public buildings such as cinemas, hotels, universities, airports, etc. share all of these gas risks, as do passenger ships. The added dimension is simply that being public they bring in an even wider range of regulatory compliance issues in almost every jurisdiction.
The gas detection business is increasingly being driven by legislation, against a background of increasing awareness of the risks and the knowledge that for over two decades there has been satisfactory monitoring technology. As that gas sensor technology has developed and evolved, legislators and national health and safety bodies have mandated appropriate gas risk monitoring anywhere there are people or even animals.
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