It's uncomfortably close to 3:00 a.m. when the event screen flashes at the alarm monitoring central station. A trouble signal from Building Three. It's the second time tonight that the signal has registered, and the person behind the terminal takes note of the event as well as the pending service ticket. Assigning the event a lower priority, he gets up to stretch his legs and refresh his cup of coffee in the break room.

No sense in disturbing that building engineer this late at night. It can wait until tomorrow morning

Meanwhile, there really is something potentially dangerous going on in Building Three. A water leak from a pipe is causing water to start to fill electrical boxes and damaging the building interior finish. Fortunately the water leak is small and the situation doesn't evolve into a more serious situation.

This time.

Such hypothetical situations are common in real-life, where system troubles can become a low- priority event, increasing the risk that human nature will trump good judgment. With lives and property hanging in the balance, today's facility manager needs tools that can help overcome the human element and mitigate the growing risks involved with modern building management.

The application of Internet communications to fire and safety systems was a logical step, and one that, since the introduction of Internet-enabled systems a few years ago, has yielded numerous benefits to the facilities management community.

In our hypothetical, an Internet-enabled system would serve as a backup to live monitoring, initiating a series of notifications via pager, for instance, that would be triggered automatically based on the type of event. Priority would not be a matter of human judgment, but instead, rigidly dictated by a set of rules established by management.

Trouble signals, for instance, might automatically initiate immediate pager notification to individuals designated by facilities management as primary responders, while actual alarm signals could prompt executive management as well. No chance for a potentially costly alarm to be overlooked by a bleary-eyed central station employee, or otherwise ignored due to human error.

And in all these cases, emails can be generated, providing an event log for review as well as establishing an audit trail for the purpose of record keeping or event reconstruction.

To be clear, this automated capability does not supplant a system's primary notification connection to the fire department, but acts in a supplemental role, offering additional means for alarm monitoring and annunciation within the facilities management organization.

Detailed Information
The benefits of bringing Internet communication to fire and safety systems extend beyond the ability to help overcome possible human error in worst-case scenarios. The biggest benefit lies in helping facilities managers do their job - managing facilities - more efficiently.

By Internet-enabling fire and safety systems, facilities managers have a new option for monitoring and managing their systems remotely. For a single structure, for environments such as an office or educational campus setting with numerous buildings on one site, or in a situation where individual buildings may be spread over a wide geographic area, the advantages to Internet connectivity are clear. In fact, the more complex the system, the more evident the value of Internet connectivity.

Using a standard web-browser interface with simple click-through viewing, facilities managers now have the ability to view device status, establish periodic system reports via email, and extract more information from their fire and safety system - more easily and in greater detail than with standard system operation. Consolidating status onto a browser-based platform means that maintenance on specific devices can be conducted in a more efficient manner. Plus, the more advanced devices that provide an early warning of potential trouble enable preventive maintenance to be performed in a timely manner, targeting devices that need it most before an unsafe situation occurs.

This is an especially valuable feature in an industrial setting where conditions may require a more active maintenance regimen, or in a healthcare facility where minimal patient care disruptions are the ideal. As information is reported, facilities managers can export the data into standard spreadsheets or other software for analysis and, over time, more efficient maintenance schedules can be established based on system needs.

Technical Elements
An Internet-enabled fire and safety system can be established as part of a new installation or as a card-based upgrade to certain alarm panels already installed in a facility. The card-based configuration offers significant cost-savings over a dedicated workstation and introduces significant system flexibility with regard to collecting and managing information.

Configuration- Each panel interface card within the fire and safety network is assigned a unique Internet protocol (IP) address that allows view and communication with individual elements of the system rather than simply providing zone-by-zone status. The fire and safety network then interfaces with a corporate data network in the same manner that any other computer appliance would be added. This means software upgrades can be accomplished as the system is expanded or enhanced.

Security- In keeping with UL requirements, Internet-connected devices are designed so that they cannot be disabled remotely. This helps prevent a compromise of system operation and facility safety through either accidental or intentional activity.

Established behind a corporate network firewall, fire and safety network security is enhanced by both an organization's existing security measures and also by the fact that the operating system is proprietary, and not based on the various Windows operating systems, which are frequent targets of hackers.

Case Studies
In many different environments, Internet-enabled communications have proven their worth by providing cost- and time-saving efficiencies, while enhancing overall system operation.

Industrial- in one large industrial plant, remote Internet communication was established as part of a total system upgrade in order to enable system programming during normal hours of plant operation. This saves the plant time and money by eliminating the need for off-hours maintenance, meaning necessary changes can be made when they are needed without compromising system operation or plant safety.

Hospitality- in a complex hotel environment, where multiple floor-to-floor and room-to-room zones are necessary, and where remodeling and other facilities enhancements are a near constant reality, one metropolitan hotel immediately recognized the benefit of Internet communication to help establish a more efficient service and maintenance regimen. Remote upgrades save significant costs, while better overall operation enhances guest safety.

Office Complex- a downtown office building with a history of troubled system operation upgraded to an Internet-enabled fire and safety network in order to improve facilities management's ability to diagnose, test and maintain the system. Using the building's existing wiring infrastructure, the upgrade was less costly than anticipated and the resulting additional features resulted in dramatic improvement to overall system performance.

State Government- for one state, the advantages of being able to consolidate the view and operation of multiple and diverse state facilities spread across a wide geographic region was compelling enough to overcome typical bureaucracy. The challenges involved with establishing a fire and safety network encompassing historical structures, modern construction, and a wide variety of office, field and public facilities were easily overcome and a more efficient management schedule established.

In addition to the known benefits of Internet-enabled fire and safety systems, there are the vast possibilities inherent with such technologies. As has been demonstrated over and over again in other industries, creative problem solving, made possible by web-based systems, is an ancillary benefit that leads to even greater advancements and enhancements in system performance.

As the future of fire and safety technology unfolds, it is often the user, faced with a new challenge, who is inspired to innovate.