printer friendly version

The best of local and international

One of the well-known names in the African fire safety market, Technoswitch has been in operation since 1974, supplying fire detection and suppression products to sub-Saharan Africa. Combining the best of local and international quality products, the company designs, manufactures, imports and sells fire detection, suppression, and control equipment.

Technoswitch, an ISO 9001:2015-certified company, has headquarters and manufacturing facilities in Johannesburg. As a manufacturer, it has experienced technical and R&D; teams, as well as skilled support personnel to assist customers with its own and the imported products it sells.

SMART Security Solutions spoke to Brett Birch, MD of Technoswitch, to discover more about the company.

SMART Security Solutions: Please briefly describe what Technoswitch does, which markets you serve, and where your operations are located. Additionally, what is your go-to-market strategy?

Brett Birch: Technoswitch has supplied high-quality fire detection and suppression systems to the South African and sub-Saharan African markets for 50 years. Our extensive product portfolio allows us to offer fire safety solutions to a wide range of market segments, including residential, commercial, industrial, mining, and marine. Our route to market is through specialist fire detection and suppression companies who, in turn, install, commission and maintain these systems.

Brett Birch.

Our head office, manufacturing facility and main distribution centre is in Johannesburg, and we have branches in Cape Town and Durban. Each location has stock holding to ensure a fast turnaround time on the supply of spares when required to minimise system downtime.

It is vital that the systems we supply not only meet our customers’ requirements, but also meet the requirements of the South African National Standards. As such, we have significantly invested in having our sales, pre-sales and technical support team SAQCC Fire certified as designers and commissioners. This enables us to perform site assessments and offer our clients and end users system design services.

We have a strong pre-sales and technical support team with extensive experience with our products and the industry. In addition, they are all registered as SAQCC Fire commissioners.

Our product warranties are also amongst the best in our industry, ranging from one year through to ten years. This, coupled with a dedicated RMA department, ensures that we can support the products we supply effectively and in a timely manner.

SMART Security Solutions: What do customers (end users) want from their fire detection and suppression systems? Similarly, what do installers and integrators want from their suppliers?

Brett Birch: End user requirements differ depending on the market segments, but some overlaps exist. For example, in the mining sector, system, track record, reliability and serviceability are vital.

This is not to say that the mining sector is not price sensitive, but rather that other factors are not that important. In the commercial space, which is predominantly tender-driven, the system’s cost-effectiveness has the highest priority. All market segments require products that carry some form of third-party certification.

Installers and integrators require a supplier with the expertise they can count on to ensure the system offered is, first and foremost, fit for purpose. In addition, stock availability, a user-friendly RMA policy and good technical backup of the product are also important. In terms of market trends, there is a significant move towards remote monitoring of systems, which allows the installer/integrator to assess issues before going to the site.

SMART Security Solutions: Does Technoswitch offer training and certifications to partners/end users? Is the training focused on products, or does it include installer training (such as according to the SAQCC curriculum)?

Brett Birch: Training of installers/integrators is vital to ensure that the supplied systems are installed and commissioned correctly and provide the functionality the end user expects. Technoswitch has a dedicated training department and has invested significantly in an online training platform to simplify access to training. The training covers product-specific training, SANS standards and industry-specific training, including SAQCC Fire-accredited training.

We also offer customised training to end users seeking basic knowledge in operating and maintaining their systems.

SMART Security Solutions: Does Technoswitch also offer a software management platform/s to manage addressable devices? Can your products (designed and imported) be integrated with third-party platforms for more efficient management and control?

Brett Birch: Yes, Technoswitch offers Drax 360’s AMX Alarm Management Software that facilitates the integration, management and control of one or more fire alarm systems.

Scalable from a single fire panel to a nationwide network of multiple fire alarm systems, AMX can provide a simple text-based alarm reporting tool to a comprehensive graphics system providing detailed floor plan locations of a critical event.

In addition, using our TC5000 range of panels, we can integrate with third-party BMS systems via our BMS interface using industry-standard protocols such as MODBUS or BACNET.

SMART Security Solutions: Technoswitch is ISO 9001 certified. Why did the company go through the process of being ISO certified, and what benefits does the certification bring to customers?

Brett Birch: ISO9001 certification is important for Technoswitch for a number of reasons.

Firstly, as a manufacturer, this gives our customers confidence in our ability to design and manufacture products of consistent quality. In addition, to get our products internationally certified, ISO9001 certification is mandatory.

Other benefits are that we have formalised procedures for our company processes, which ensures we can deliver a consistently high level of service to our customers. In addition, the ISO9001:2015 standard focuses on driving customer centricity and continual improvement, which are essential aspects for any business.

SMART Security Solutions: What are the latest products and/or services Technoswitch released in 2024, and what can we expect in 2025?

Brett Birch: During 2024, we focused a lot on marketing the new products we released at the end of 2023, such as our two wireless fire detection ranges, Hyfire and REACH. Taurus from Hyfire is a fully wireless offering that can easily answer the needs of both small, medium and large sites. It handles up to 128 devices per wireless translator and 240 per loop, with a 10-year battery life on input and five years on output devices.

REACH is Apollo’s hybrid-wireless fire alarm system that delivers flexible solutions for buildings, temporary structures and high-rise residential apartments, extending detection without compromising the level of protection from fire.

On the services side, we added a significant number of new courses to our online training platform, most of which are now free of charge.

2025 will be an exciting year in which our customers can look forward to several new product releases and improvements to our current product offerings. These include enhancements to our current range of manufactured extinguishing control panels and conventional panels, expansion of the Hyfire wireless offering and new additions to our range of FGD flame detectors, to name a few.

Share this article:

Further reading: