I Need Someone Who Knows the Questions I Forgot to Ask
Posted on Fri, Nov 11, 2011
How to Qualify the People who Walk in Your Door
By James Whitehouse, ASG's QRT Manager
So many times we see customers who fell for the line, “yeah we install access control” or “there’s nothing to installing cameras” or they fall for the lowest bid trap. There are many reasons for different costs on a security project, but many times people think that all installations are created equal and nothing could be further from the truth. There are 3 major areas of cost on a security project: Technicians and personnel, engineering and equipment.
Technicians and Personnel:
An installation company can save significantly on the internal costs of installing a system simply by hiring less experienced people and providing them with little or no training in the systems they install. Many states have licensing and permitting requirements that are designed to protect the consumers from those installation companies, but not all companies play by the rules. Some companies will use unlicensed people or apprentices. How can you protect yourself? During the due diligence phase of your evaluation of integrators and their approach, specify and then audit that your implementation must be performance by licensed professionals. Ask to see the company’s licenses and their people (e.g., contractor’s license, electrical license, etc.).
Then you need to take the next important step. Specify then audit that they are trained in the products that they are implementing. Every technology vendor provides ‘certifications’. The investment in time and money required to attend training and the subsequent certification is not trivial.
Then you need to consider the next important step: experience. We all know classroom training only gets you so far. Professional integrators have internal programs that take the classroom graduates and audit their work until they reach a level of expertise demanded by their profession. Ask a simple question: how long have the people performing the work been certified to implement these products? The industry average for retaining a skilled and certified technician is 1-2 years. The best integrators average term is 5-10 years.
Next, understand what the capacity of your integrator is. When you look at integrators and they tell you they have trained people, it’s a good idea to ask how many and for how long. Many times they will only have one or two people listed who don’t even work there anymore. If they only have one person, what happens if your system has a problem and that one person is on vacation?
In summary, licenses ensure that the technician understands the electrical codes involved with the installation, but that has nothing to do with the technical aspect of the equipment that they are installing. The code and permits are designed to prevent the system from causing a fire or other life-safety situations, not to make sure that you get a quality, well designed and installed working system. In other words, the technician may know that the cable needs to be tied up every 4 feet but have no idea how a card reader works. Technicians aren’t the only people involved with the installation, and these same principles can be applied to everyone involved with your security project. The design engineers, project managers and the application engineers who do final start-up and testing of your system can all vary in experience and training. Some companies don’t even have these people and every one of them is essential to a successful installation.
At this point many of you are saying: “I hired an engineering firm to design every part of my building. Whoever gets the contract will have to follow their design.” Here is what we have been told by our clients and what we have discovered ourselves: In most cases the engineering firm is just looking at basic functionality and they don’t know your business or how your people are going to use your system. They are also primarily focused on one building, not your entire security system. Finally, they usually have no idea how their specifications will affect your system as a whole. That’s where your integrator should step forward and start asking questions.
“I Need Someone Who Knows the Questions I Forgot to Ask”
What ends up happening when you have people with little or no experience with your site and system and little or no experience in this field? They don’t know what questions to ask, or situations to look out for to make sure the end user will be happy with the final product. The engineering firms don’t normally go into detail about how to configure the systems so you end up with a system that doesn’t work for you. There are so many ways to design a system to save money, and only a couple of ways to design a system that you can count on.