But there’s one more issue: The effectiveness of the best-thought security plans becomes diminished over time by the likelihood of under-management. Simply speaking, people decrease or eliminate the day-to-day management of those systems. On the other hand, integrated systems don’t mind the drudgery of some of the more tedious system management details. They activate or deactivate themselves during specific times of the day, begin to digitally record activities in an area when the camera senses motion, and the fire alarm system even transmits a service problem signal right to the central station where it can be dealt with. That greatly reduces the human failure factor, which is at the core of many costly security breaches.
Every fire alarm system is affected by NFPA codes and standards. Interfacing access control to these systems requires due diligence on the installation vendor’s part. Emergency egress is a vital part of this integration, while specific equipment is often mandated to be part of the door-releasing process. A primary code enforcement engineering review process is required prior to designing an integrated fire alarm and access control system.