Security System Maintenance Contracts
You have no sooner put the finishing touches on a security system installation contract than someone stops by, pats you on the back, and says, "By the way, who is maintaining this system?" There you go again. If you have not already put the system installation contract out for bid, you might consider including maintenance provisions in it as well, to obtain the best possible negotiating leverage - when no one has your company's business yet.
Most security system manufacturers and installers guarantee or warrant the reliable operation of their system and components for at least one year. If you cannot obtain at least this minimal guarantee, seriously consider selecting alternate manufacturers or their representatives.
Before a warranty period expires, be sure to execute a service contract with knowledgeable suppliers certified by the manufacturers to service the equipment. The following items should be included in a service contract specification:
* List the facilities covered by the contract.
* List the normal hours and days on which work will be required. The contractor should provide the rates per hour for the work minus the cost of materials and parts.
* Describe the required emergency response time in case of system failure and how to communicate with the supplier outside normal business days and hours. Because access control and physical protection of virtually all business occupancies are critical, response times outside normal business days and hours are important.
* Compile a detailed list of all equipment to be serviced under the contract, including:
a) Card readers.
b) Field panels.
c) CPU, terminals, printers and peripheral devices.
d) CCTV cameras, housings, domes, time-lapse video recording devices, and camera controller devices and monitors.
e) UPS and surge protection devices.
f) Electronic door locks/strikes.
g) Emergency devices, such as break-glass devices.
h) Alarm contacts and audible alarm devices.
* Define all local work rules that may exist, such as those governing parking, building admittance, communication with local management about problems, sign-in and sign-out on building registers, work area safety, work area cleanup, storage of materials, lockout and tagout, and the hot work permit process to control welding and cutting activities.
* Define what spare parts will be maintained and immediately available for emergency installation in case a system component fails. After a security system has been selected and installed, it must be properly administered to prevent retention of outdated information, which will tax the memory and storage capacity of the host computer. Facilities and security managers should ensure that one person and a backup are assigned system administration duties, which should entail the following tasks:
- Deleting system records of people who have left the payroll or tenancy, or of those whose entry privileges have expired. This task requires very close collaboration with the human resources department and the organisation responsible for hiring contracted workers.
- Printing hard-copy access reports from the system for a given period and retaining them for a specified period, usually three to six months.
- Periodically polling the system to determine whether cardholders have stopped using their cards or have left the payroll or tenancy without the security department being notified.
- Programming the system to deny entry privileges to a certain person or groups of people as business needs dictate.
- For investigative purposes, providing archived reports of entries and departures of specific individuals and matching the reports to video or CD recordings of entries and departures.
- Assuring that the time stamp for the entry control system is perfectly synchronised with the time stamp for the video surveillance system, so that actual facility entry and departure times are properly matched with recorded times.
Source: BOMI Institute's Technologies for Facilities Management course.
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