This Article by Rodney Bosch originally appeared in the August, 2009 issue of Security Sales & Integration Magazine. To view the original online article, click here.
Propelled by tragic events such as the Virginia Tech shooting massacre in 2007, a new generation of mass notification technologies are fast opening new doors of opportunity for security contractors in education, retail center, health care, government facility and other verticals.
At its foundation, a mass notification system (MNS) is based on the same principle as voice evacuation. Today, however, new solutions are allowing for a far greater ability to deliver specific life-safety messages to targeted groups by way of multiple means of communication. These include live or recorded voice announcements over outdoor loudspeakers or indoor paging systems, text messaging, E-mail blasts, radio, fax machines, electric signs and others.
Also known as emergency communications systems (ECS), these new solutions are even being leveraged to improve business processes and other internal communication tasks for end users. Along with essential installation skill sets, including IP/IT proficiency, security contractors looking to capitalize on this growing market will need to gain an understanding of the facets unique to MNS. Among them are keeping abreast of new changes to NFPA 72 codes and requirements, negotiating market impediments and identifying projects that best suit your company's abilities.
Overview of Vertical Opportunities
Because mass notification technologies allow a facility to contend with the specifics of a threat opposed to only announcing the threat, today's solutions make for natural application in a broad range of environments.
University campuses are among the most active verticals currently in the MNS market. In a recent mass notification survey, SSI asked readers which applications are proving the most popular; colleges/universities led the pack along with office buildings.
Helping drive this vertical, the Higher Education Opportunity Act of 2008 mandates all educational facilities to have the capability to immediately notify all personnel in the event of an emergency. Stimulus funding and grants are also providing some of the financial wherewithal for colleges and universities to pursue new and enhanced life-safety measures.
The higher education market "is heating up more and more everyday," says Ted Milburn, GE Security's product marketing manager for the Americas. Nowadays campus officials are driving emergency communication purchases in new ways, Milburn says. "They are saying to parents, 'We will keep your kids safe,' and it becomes a great marketing tool for them to deploy some form of mass notification."
All facilities with a considerable footprint, especially those with multiple buildings, are a natural customer for MNS. Think hospitals, shopping malls, sports stadiums, transit sites, assembly complexes and the like. Any location where large groups of people gather is a prime candidate for MNS and especially intelligible voice mass notification solutions.
Among other various market niches that present growth opportunities for security contractors, hospitals can frequently be the trickiest to integrate MNS. Oftentimes, immediate evacuation or relocation may not be an option, for patients and staff. Other events may necessitate alerting staff to an emergency without notifying patients. In these scenarios, hospital workers can execute prearranged emergency plans without compromising patient safety.
Campus environments of all types can also present multiple challenges when designing/installing MNS. Typically these environments are outfitted with an assortment of legacy equipment that may have a limited life expectancy, making integration of newer technologies difficult. Such predicaments are not lost causes, however, and even present opportunities. Working closely with stakeholders, a security contractor can specify a MNS that operates at a minimal level while instituting an action plan to expand the solution as capital investment allows.
The important issue is to help end users understand why a layered technology approach is in their best interest, says Patrick Fiel Sr., a public safety advisor for ADT Security Services. Many customers may believe a single technology, such as an outdoor siren, will meet their goals and requirements. The siren can alert the intended groups, but how you provide specific life-safety instruction from there can be dubious.
"You have to define exactly what message you are trying to relay," Fiel says. "To do that you need multiple systems, redundancy systems to notify multiple people at different given times."
MNS Demands IT/IP Know-How
Just as other design and installation disciplines within the electronic security profession place a premium on an integrator's networking skills, IP-based technologies have made an indelible impact on MNS.
The extensive use of TCP/IP-based Wide Area Networks (WANs) or Local Area Networks (LANs) allow facilities in different geographic areas to seamlessly communicate with each other during an emergency. Still other control equipment allows for control panels to be networked together through existing Internet connections.
The beauty of all this connectivity is it allows for MNS to integrate the multiple layers of communication mentioned above, and ultimately provide a holistic solution that ties together indoor and outdoor areas.
"Many of these systems are being integrated but also riding on IT infrastructure," says Bob Johnson, vice president of system sales for Sarasota, Fla.-based Cooper Notification.
As an example, Johnson referenced Millersville University in Pennsylvania where The Protection Bureau of Exton, Pa., completed an installation of Cooper Notification's Roam Secure Alert Network (RSAN) in June. Prior, in 2008, The Protection Bureau installed Cooper Notification's WAVES speaker array for broadcasting messages over wide outdoor areas. Today the integrated solutions allow university officials to activate their E-mail, text messaging and outdoor giant voice speakers from one user interface.
Increasingly, organizations are being distributed across multiple buildings and, in many cases, across distant geography. Here, too, new MNS solutions have the ability to very quickly communicate a variety of different types of threat scenarios.
"We may communicate with one individual in five or six different ways. The key being for those real critical events we want to make sure they get it in the fastest possible way," says Jeremy Krinitt, vice president of marketing, REACT Systems, a provider of enterprise notification technologies. The Roseville, Calif.-based company has teamed with Honeywell to provide a unified security solution for emergency communication.
By interfacing with Honeywell's Pro-Watch security management and WIN-PAK access control platforms, the technology can provide users with the ability to automate the process of initiating a response to critical scenarios, such as a forced entry at a campus building, to multiple groups.
"The appropriate information within that building might be to lock down, while simultaneously responders are told to report to that area because there is a security concern," Krinitt says. "We might simultaneously tell people outside that immediate area to stay away."
Barriers Slow Market Progression
Last year research firm Frost & Sullivan published a report that stated the North American MNS services market is experiencing strong growth with overall market revenues reaching more than $357 million in 2007. The report prognosticated the market would grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of nearly 17 percent through 2013.
Nevertheless, the progression of mass notification is being slowed on several fronts. One main reason is a lack of knowledge and experience in the development of MNS programs. Fortunately, the 2010 edition of NFPA 72, which was approved in June, is expected to inject much-needed guidance on the issue.
Another persistent barrier is a lack of education in the marketplace. Many end users are not informed on the wide range of technologies available nor do they understand what types of notification systems would work best in their facilities. For instance, contacting people via PDAs to deliver emergency notifications is still a new idea for many. Often the result is end users remain skeptical about the capabilities of these services.
"Over the next two years we think the most important thing we have to do is educate the end user on what the different technologies can be used for," Milburn says. "It becomes a matter of how do we educate the entire industry to drive the important concepts of mass notification."
The expense of some large mass notification solutions and the recession have also conspired to slow the pace of adoption. As industries continue to evaluate MNS options for the most cost-effective system, leveraging existing infrastructure is a priority to keep installation costs in check.
Security contractors should insistently look to incorporate the end user's existing technology, says Fiel.
"We are going to want to incorporate it to the value of what [the end user] has already spent," he says. "It is very critical to understand what you are purchasing currently and how you are going to move forward to a plan. It might take you five or six years to get to your plan's final goals and objectives."
NFPA Code Emerges to Guide MNS Designs, Installations
The recent growth of mass notification systems (MNS) in the portfolios of security contractors has largely taken place without the guidance of governing industry codes and standards. Now help is on the way with the passage in June of the 2010 edition of NFPA 72 and the efforts of Underwriters Laboratories (UL).
NFPA 72, which is presided over by the National Fire Alarm Association and has undergone significant changes from the 2007 edition, includes the addition of three new chapters and a name change to National Fire Alarm and Signaling Code.
"Mass notification is a very specialized area where only a limited number of dealers have had access to such an opportunity," says Al Colombo, SSI's "Fire Side Chat" columnist and who has provided technical direction for security and fire/life-safety dealers for more than 20 years.
Prior to the NFPA 72 changes, Colombo says private industry looked to the Department of Defense (DoD) guidelines as a kind of de facto standard under the Unified Facilities Code (UFC). The code changes will now likely mean more business opportunities for fire/life-safety professionals.
"Although NFPA actually helped write the UFC for the Air Force in the early 2000s, NFPA 72 itself has not been exactly helpful in setting requirements that dealers could live by, but this new code will remedy that," Colombo says. "It's quite extensive and it provides direction that alarm companies, mostly integrators, will find beneficial."
One of the most significant additions to the 2010 edition of NFPA 72 is a new chapter titled "Emergency Communication Systems (ECS)," which incorporates the design, installation and testing requirements for MNS. (The terms ECS and MNS are used synonymously.)
Among other noteworthy changes systems integrators will need to know, the new ECS chapter mandates a risk analysis be completed before starting the design of these systems. The intent is to provide the basis for developing an emergency response plan and the design of the MNS unique to each installation's needs and requirements.
Designers will now have to plan for both fire and nonfire emergencies when determining the required performance of the MNS and how various signals are handled, according to Ted Milburn, GE Security's product marketing manager for the Americas.
"You have to understand what the environment is, what the needs are, and then build a system based around that risk analysis," Milburn says. "An integrator that has all the skill in pulling all of these systems together may still not meet the needs unless you have done a great risk analysis."
UL has worked diligently with industry stakeholders to create an MNS standard. Its efforts have resulted in the recent release of an "outline of investigation" that will soon lead to an MNS standard known as UL 2572. In June, GE Security became the first manufacturer to meet UL's pending MNS standard with its EST3-Sixty solution.
Rob Tockarshewsky, UL's global marketing manager for fire and security, compares the security industry's lagging MNS standards to the home automation industry's woes of 10 years ago when it suffered from bringing together its disparate parties and technologies.
"Home automation means a lot of different things to a lot of different people; same thing with mass notification. It can be as simple as a loud speaker alerting you to a fire, to now campus-wide audio and video and texting, and third-party central stations getting involved," he says.
Because mass notification technologies allow a facility to contend with the specifics of a threat opposed to only announcing the threat, today's solutions make for natural application in a broad range of environments.
Campus environments of all types can also present multiple challenges when designing/installing MNS. Typically these environments are outfitted with an assortment of legacy equipment that may have a limited life expectancy, making integration of newer technologies difficult. Such predicaments are not lost causes, however, and even present opportunities. Working closely with stakeholders, a security contractor can specify a MNS that operates at a minimal level while instituting an action plan to expand the solution as capital investment allows.
Nevertheless, the progression of mass notification is being slowed on several fronts. One main reason is a lack of knowledge and experience in the development of MNS programs. Fortunately, the 2010 edition of NFPA 72, which was approved in June, is expected to inject much-needed guidance on the issue.