Mike Sutcliffe Writes

Of things old and new (Thoughts for a New Year)

Did you know that January is named after the Roman God Janus? A strange god who was in charge of doors and gates, not much of a career path for an up and coming god you might say but he did have one good thing going for him, he had a double head facing both to the past and to the future, now there’s something that could be useful, being able not just to see the past, but also the future. For me January is a good time to look to the past, to our achievements, our difficulties and problems, to remember what has gone before but then also to look to our future hopes and plans.

For those of you who like me have spent more years than we care to remember in the intruder alarm industry the past probably holds mixed memories. It is hard to believe that just a few decades ago the height of alarm detection was Building yards of metal tube and wooden batten frames woven through with fragile wires that would break with any movement in the framework. Then screwing those same frames to windows and doors just so Bill the Burglar in his stripy jumper and mask would blunder his way through destroying all your hard work. Sticking metal foil onto windows in the vague hope that an intruder would be stupid enough to smash an obviously alarmed window to enter the premises was another of the industries low tech solutions to crime.

How times change, whenever I hear an engineer complain how difficult it is to re-programme an alarm panel or replace a faulty detector the old curmudgeon in me cries out “they don’t know they’re born”, but times change and the skills and abilities needed to work in our industry change with the years.

One of the areas of the Security Industry where we have seen many advances is in the way in which we monitor alarm systems. Those old enough will remember standing at the front desk of the local Police Station, waiting on the desk sergeant to be granted access to the “back room” where the “home office panels” were screwed to the wall. A different panel for each alarm installer, with red green and yellow lights to indicate alarm, clear or line fault showing that all was well on the expensive private leased lines (or more usually the yellow light only showing that the line was in fault).

There was no such thing as an alarm receiving centre, at least not as we know it today and communication equipment went from the sublime (a beautifully crafted clockwork mechanism in burnished brass which played a 78 rpm record and that had to be wound up again after every activation) to the ridiculous (a cheap and unreliable battery powered record player with contacts on the spindle to dial 999 when activated) Try explaining to a young engineer that once upon a time the best way to contact the police, was with a record player that dialled 999 and then played the message from a 45rpm disc over the phone and you will get a look of pure incredulity or even “what’s a record player?” in return for your trouble.

2010 sees aim moving into its 10th year of business, poised and ready for many more changes. During January we will be preparing to change from the alarm receiving software that we have used for many years to a different and improved system. This brings with it many challenges and opportunities for our business; it also gives us the tools to improve our information systems to our customers with a web site to allow alarm installers to manage their customers systems on line.

During January we will be holding training events at centralised locations around the U.K. for our customers who currently use the Security Information Database, Sentry or Sentinel Plus web systems. The purpose of these training events is to give these customers the knowledge and ability to manage customer’s records on line. Later in the year we will be rolling web access out to our other customers.

At the same time we are currently looking to improve our installer’s area on this web site to provide more information and help for our customers. We appreciate that with so many standards and policies to follow sometimes running an alarm business can be more about “dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s” than actually fitting alarms and making a living. Our aim therefore is to create a “one stop shop” providing our customers with the relevant information needed to ensure that their customer’s alarms systems are monitored as efficiently as possible.

As well as making technical changes to our systems, we are also in the middle of completely refurbishing our alarm receiving centres. The buildings are being stripped and refitted to high standards providing a much improved working environment for our staff. Generators and backup power systems are being replaced or improved and overhauled and all our computer hardware updated to ensure that nothing that is “business critical” is over 4 years old.



So just like our old friend Janus, in aim we can look back at the past and forward to a bright future. We stand at the doorway to a new decade, in aim we are looking forward to exciting new times in our business, but we never forget that our success is based on our customers success and so we wish all our customers a prosperous, happy and healthy 2010.

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Advanced Independent Monitoring AIM is a subsidiary of tyco Fire and Security - BSIA British Security Industry Association LPCB Certificated Fire Detection and Alarm System Firm, NSI Gold, Fire industry Association