Over the last ten years or so I have been involved in the New York City market for fire protection working with some incredible companies. They taught me a lot about fire protection design, manufacturing and how NFPA codes can influence the industry.
Utilizing this knowledge base of fire protection, along with a Six Sigma / Process Improvement background, has driven Inspect Point to look at the overall work flow of the Inspection, Testing and Maintenance (ITM) process.
One division of fire protection ITM that Inspect Point saw some delays and roadblocks in was the portable fire extinguisher space. NFPA 10 is the national code that guides authorities (building officials, fire departments, and insurance agencies) to how extinguishers are installed and maintained. The code specifies the frequency of every inspection and what should take place. Compared to other avenues of fire protection, portable fire extinguishers have a fraction of the inspection criteria that other systems like sprinklers and fire alarm have.
This being said, efficiency of each inspection needs to be optimized. Identification of each extinguisher is the key factor in speeding up the process. Barcodes and QR codes are great ways to keep your inventory of portables in a specific building.
Recently the FDNY enacted a new rule throughout New York City requiring all portable fire extinguishers to be identified with unique tag. Each tag has a variety of characteristics that prevent fraudulent activities from happening. This is a very large change for the 5 boroughs and how inspections are now to be conducted.
https://www1.nyc.gov/assets/fdny/downloads/pdf/business/pfe-tag-changes.pdf
These new tags allow a company to be more efficient with their inspections if utilizing a mobile software to manage these inspections. Barcodes allow the technician to easily scan extinguishers pulling up history and appropriate inspection criteria. This then can be automatically documented and sent to the building owner or AHJ (authority having jurisdiction) immediately. Service work on each fire extinguisher can be documented and written up in a proposal or invoice. Even though the new tags are huge change, there is plenty of opportunity here as well.
Inspect Point is a software platform that manages inspection and service of fire protection systems. Ease of use and efficiency are aspects that continue to push our product forward. For more information check out a demo of Inspect Point today.
