Service Maintenance Program:
The Preventative Maintenance Inspection
Current electronic security systems are very reliable with low failure rates, fewer components with moving parts, solid state image devices that retain their integrity for years and card readers that require no maintenance. System components today are generally replaced instead of repaired when they fail. Long gone are the days when security system maintenance meant changing image tubes in cameras before they burned out, replacing critical parts in VCR’s before they failed, or cleaning or replacing magnetic stripe reader heads before they wore out. In short, there is very little prevention with service maintenance with today’s components and systems.
Even so, many systems integrators still promote the idea of a preventative maintenance (PM) program involving sending out a service technician to check out the system on regular basis. Unfortunately, this often only involves a cursory inspection of the system primarily to make a mandatory appearance and see if the cameras are all showing on the monitor and if there are any service issues to address at that time.
It is time to redefine PM in terms appropriate to current systems. A more up-to-date approach would be to provide the customer a thorough system evaluation as a part of a proactive maintenance program. Instead of having your integrator send a service technician to conduct the evaluation, the integrator should look at this as an opportunity to not only provide a service to you, but also measure the effectiveness of his/her service department. A higher level of personnel should be involved in the evaluation, such as a service supervisor or even a manager, depending on the size and complexity of the system.
The evaluation process should be coordinated with you and a follow-up meeting with the integrator’s representative should be scheduled to review the evaluation and chart out future actions. You must realize some value from the evaluation; in turn, the integrator will gain additional customer good-will as well as a self-evaluation with a degree of oversight for their service department.
The evaluation should be defined to consider the following:
- Customer operating procedures. Identify and review system back-up procedures and system operation.
- System performance. Is the system as a whole still functioning in the way it was originally intended?
- Training needs. Identify personnel who may need additional training and set up future training sessions if requested.
- Service performance. Review service records for reoccurring service calls. Inspect equipment panels and terminations for quality of work and neatness. Interview customer staff concerning response time, competency and professionalism of the technicians servicing the account.
- Software or hardware updates. Determine if software updates are required and schedule updates. Review hardware components and identify any that may be old or obsolete and make suggestions to the customer for future updates.
- Define potential problems. Survey the systems electronic components and hardware for deficiencies and schedule service calls for component repair.
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The evaluation approach should accomplish the following:
- Regular evaluations will ensure that the system is in optimum working order and operating in the way it was intended. This is possibly the greatest benefit of the program. We generally advise our clients to use the night-shift, security officers to perform system functionality checks. Given defined procedures and a systematic approach, most systems can be checked out end-to-end at least once and possibly twice a year. Your integrator partner can be used for some of the more intricate checkout procedures such as that involving the head-end equipment and device intercommunication. These activities can also be used to train select security officers in some of the more advanced system operational features.
- Obsolete, troublesome and non-functioning components will be identified for replacement or repair. It is clearly not cost effective to continually chase new technology; however, it is prudent to stay abreast of new technology so when it is time to replace a major component such as a camera or video recorder, you can evaluate the available options with your integrator. Between the two organizations, a careful comparison of such items as functionality, features, serviceability and price can be considered.
- The integrator will be able to evaluate their service performance by deploying supervisors or managers to conduct the evaluation.
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This approach could provide more real benefit to you, the system owner, in that your integrator is looking for items that will potentially improve the performance of your system and operational staff. It also provides you a defined channel for feedback to the integrator. Instead of spending hard-to-come-by dollars on meaningless preventative maintenance activities, work with your service provider to obtain real, beneficial service.
Randy Nason, PE, VP
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