Everyone knows that the first step for maintaining fire and security systems in your business is working on annual budgets and timelines. But don’t overlook the second step: Planning ahead for inspections, servicing and testing your systems.
Planning guarantees that staying up to code is simple and easy and keeps you on budget. Plus, because compliance violations can affect insurance rates, and even your ability to open and operate your business, inspections, service and maintenance need to be current and up to code. Simply put, being proactive versus reactive saves time, money, and stress.
Whether it’s a single location or coordinating many buildings, planning makes all the difference in the success of your business. Without enough planning, emergency costs can be more expensive, negatively impact your bottom line, and cause a lot of unnecessary stress. Staff changes and vacations can also be challenging when inspections, servicing and testing are not coordinated.
The Solution: Get Organized with the BFS Planning Matrix
Effective planning is a delicate balancing act, so Brothers Fire & Security has developed the Planning Matrix Tool especially for our customers. The goal of the Planning Matrix is to take out the guesswork and coordinate all your fire and security inspections and maintenance and budgets.
We’ll work with you to evaluate systems and plan expenses based on how often work is required. You’ll download the Planning Matrix and simply mark the timeline and systems for your unique situation. Once you schedule regular maintenance for all your different fire and security systems, we’ll make sure they are done on time and on budget. You can even schedule many years out so that you’ll never miss another deadline.
For example, a Planning Matrix schedule for sprinkler systems includes:
- Annual inspections of fire pumps and standpipes
- Inspection of dry pipe/full action pre-trip every three years
- Internal Inspections every five years
- Standpipe 200 PSI testing and flow every five years
- Dry sprinkler head testing every 10 years.
Too Many Vendors
Inspections and maintenance can be missed when you have too many fire and security vendors. Scheduling all the vendors can cause disruptions for your tenants or customers. Multiple vendors usually don’t communicate or coordinate with each other, which makes it inconvenient and disruptive for everyone.
A new difficulty in working with multiple vendors is the time-consuming and rigorous COVID-19 workplace protocols. You need to ensure each vendor maintains protocols, such as social distancing, worker hygiene, cleaning and disinfecting, making deliveries, space occupancy limits, and face-to-face interaction. Who wants to spend valuable time and effort duplicating the same protocols every time a different vendor sets foot on the property? Not me!
That’s why Brothers Fire & Security’s integrated services make a huge difference. We bundle systems to meet your needs for fire protection, security, 24-7 monitoring, card access and kitchen hoods. Bundling services under one roof can save an average of 25% on your annual fire and security costs. If you have more than one vendor, I encourage you to ask for our FREE vendor review.
Planning Matrix Enhances Efficiency
When you deploy the Brothers Fire & Security Planning Matrix, you’ll know exactly what your fire and security expenses will be ahead of time, and you won’tmiss deadlines and the service will be incorporated into your yearly budget. As a result, you’ll avoid unexpected and unbudgeted expenses.
Think of Brothers Fire & Security as your strategic business partner. We’ll consult with you to plan for the future, deal with changes and challenges to your business, and help you stay out of crisis mode. Bottom line, we’ll take care of your planning so you remain focused on your business.
About Brothers Fire & Security
As one of the premier providers of fire and security solutions in the Upper Midwest, Brothers Fire & Security strives to build long-term, value-added relationships. We work with business owners and property management companies, as well as all types of public institutions to solve fire and security needs. By taking advantage of our integrated bundled services, many of our clients find that they can save 25-30% on their safety services, annual inspections and more. From a single location to franchises throughout the region and the country, our integrated approach saves our clients valuable time, money, and stress. We provide fire protection systems, security systems, fire sprinkler systems, fire alarm systems, 24-7 monitoring, fire extinguishers, card access and kitchen hoods. And coming soon, our new Online Academy: Life Safety — Made Simple with eLearning courses designed to help you get and keep your staff trained and your business fire and security code compliant.
