Fire alarm system's institute ???

[Benzerari]

Guys;

I would like to know why other disciplines have professional institute and recognition with professional cards and registrations..., look at just Electricians, Plumbers... and so on, only (fire alarm system's industry) and its engineers are really (Bas.......) with all my respect, why new fire alarm engineers should spend years and years in the field to get qualified and depending on the assimilation and previous individual background too... why not saving time into setting up an institute for fire alarm systems...?

Engineers actually working as fire alarm engineers come from different backgrounds, should it be better to setup a special institution to teach fire alarm systems, with additional important modules than the FIA ones such as:

Module 1: the basics of electronics
Module 2: the basic in IT, computing and networking
Module 3: Legislation and standard related to the industry
Module 4: the basics of statistics
Module 5: fire alarm systems and how it works for both conventional and analogue addressable systems, with
                The various technologies of fire detections...
Module 6: the market of fire alarm systems (makes, suppliers, manufacturers, service companies...etc
Module 7: the basics of fire science, fire dynamics..., risk assessment
Module 8: the basics of technical drawings and CAD software use...etc
......................

........... Etc


What do you think?

[kurnal]

Good list Benz.

You also need to cover:

intrinsically safe equipment, DSEAR and alarm systems for special environments
Special applications and interfaces- eg high air flow rates, ducting, ventilation  etc
Interactions with fixed installations- eg gaseous systems

[Benzerari]

Good list Benz.

You also need to cover:

Intrinsically safe equipment, DSEAR and alarm systems for special environments
Special applications and interfaces- i.e. high air flow rates, ducting, ventilation etc
Interactions with fixed installations- i.e. gaseous systems

That's right, what about fire alarm systems for marine use, aviation, spaceship, nuclear power stations, oil fields... they are good payers industries are they?

As far as I know there is still a lack of fire alarm engineers in the market, so the market wants them, why don't we produce them and make them in part time studying and part time working as apprentice with the existing service companies, I believe so many members in here are around 50s and 60s years old, with a wonderful experience, why not using their skills to teach the young generations...

We can do a lot of wonderful things guys, and I beilive every one has some thing to colaborate with

[Graeme]

Benz-why dont you apply to the IFE as a technical member. I have been accepted on my qualifications and i need to now submit a paper on career development which i have been meaning to do for two years now.

I have already got Technical membership in the IEE and certificates in most of what you have listed apart from 4 which i don't understand what you mean.
I had to go to a private company to get my CAD one.

[Benzerari]

Benz-why dont you apply to the IFE as a technical member. I have been accepted on my qualifications and i need to now submit a paper on career development which i have been meaning to do for two years now.

I have already got Technical membership in the IEE and certificates in most of what you have listed apart from 4 which i don't understand what you mean.
I had to go to a private company to get my CAD one.

Nb 4 Module? it is just 'statistics module', but with its basic concept,  without getting into unnecessary details the fire alarm engineer would not need in a short or mid-term, if I say some people have come into fire alarm industry from different disciplines including none technical ones such as, linguistic, social, history, economy, psychology and so on and so on... you wouldn’t be surprised, but when starting as an apprentice fire alarm engineer with a lower salary just because there is no other offers of jobs... they usually get difficulties in understanding technical terminologies in Physics Chemical Math. Electronics Statistics or merely how a simple electronics circuit works...  they have then to spend years and years at work to assimilate what is what... but if a special institute for alarm systems which unfortunately we haven't got, could be setup for such basic training that would save us a lot of time... I think many members would share the same thought

Just a simple case: one of our young service engineers called me one day seeking tech support, saying he has found I/O unit faulty, I said before you decide it's faulty, check its EOL he said yes it is missing but I haven't got that value, I said try to combine what you have to get that value....  on the basis of; 2 resistors in serial would be the sum of the resistors and two equal resistors in parallel would divide the value by two and so on, till you get what you want, imagine he couldn't get this simple point, for the simple reason that he hasn't got electronics basics...

Another one who is all the time escaping any jobs dealing with laptop just because he never touched a computer, also he doesn't even know its basics…

When talking some times about percentage of obscuration or say the fire grows in general exponentially, which means its growth, follows an exponential math. function… all of these stuff and many more necessitate the basics of statistics and probability knowledge too…

[Benzerari]

Benz-why dont you apply to the IFE as a technical member. I have been accepted on my qualifications and i need to now submit a paper on career development which i have been meaning to do for two years now.I have already got Technical membership in the IEE and certificates in most of what you have listed apart from 4 which I don't understand what you mean.
I had to go to a private company to get my CAD one.

Regarding IFE, I personally tried to download my article from their Journal 'Fire Risk Management' I couldn't do so, till I e-mailed them, then they sent me a hard copy of the journal for the simple reason that I am not member... and (why I am not member?)

Years ago I tried to get some info about the IFE membership, I found several obstacles which I couldn't cope with, such a reference of some corporate of IFE, to be honest none of the colleagues and friends I worked with are corporate of IFE, also the CPD stuff I found it more about fire management, investigation and so on, rather then fire alarm system's engineering job.

I would like to know about the last bit you have mentioned, the career development is it just a CV or some thing else? I haven't got a clue why a CV should take 2 years to complete?... or am I misinterpreting that?

Also overall,  where are the training courses for fire alarm engineering within IFE? Why they don’t consider them or within a separate section of IFE?

[Graeme]

within the IFE

http://www.ife.org.uk/edutrain/approvedcoursesatoz/firealarm


the paper has not taken me two years to complete rather two years to get my act together and find time to do it.

[Benzerari]

within the IFE

http://www.ife.org.uk/edutrain/approvedcoursesatoz/firealarm


the paper has not taken me two years to complete rather two years to get my act together and find time to do it.

What sort of membership did you get then? and how did you find a corporate ref? and also what sort of things do you need to put in that paper? is it common to any new member?

[Thomas Brookes]

I agree with you on this one, there a few bodies in uk such as British Fire Consortium, FIA (used to be feta), Ifeda but all these are aimed at companies and not people. It is one of the things I have put forwards to the BFC which the committee are looking into.

This is where I think the UK lags behind the USA, you can study some sort of fire qualification at nealy every higher education college or university (I have a few US qualifications). We are only just in the uk starting to have this as a serious course, but unlike the US I have not found any aimed at fire protection engineers such as fire alarms etc, it more like Fire Engineering with in buildings.

As for the IFE not over keen, mainly because I get the impression its doors open for any grade of fireman or woman, how ever if you are a fire engineer etc you have to jump through loads of hoops such as Graham has got to. I just think either all should jump through the hoops or none.

[Benzerari]

I agree with you on this one, there a few bodies in uk such as British Fire Consortium, FIA (used to be feta), Ifeda but all these are aimed at companies and not people. It is one of the things I have put forwards to the BFC which the committee are looking into.

This is where I think the UK lags behind the USA, you can study some sort of fire qualification at nealy every higher education college or university (I have a few US qualifications). We are only just in the uk starting to have this as a serious course, but unlike the US I have not found any aimed at fire protection engineers such as fire alarms etc, it more like Fire Engineering with in buildings.

As for the IFE not over keen, mainly because I get the impression its doors open for any grade of fireman or woman, how ever if you are a fire engineer etc you have to jump through loads of hoops such as Graham has got to. I just think either all should jump through the hoops or none.

It has never been late to do better !

[Thomas Brookes]

I have often wondered why city and guilds institute do not do C & G qualifications in fire alarms, I have done quite a few in regards to BS7671 wiring where you touch a tiny bit on fire alarms so why not a full C & G in BS5839-1or part 6 and then these could be NVQ level 3 and may be 4 & 5 etc. Maybe if there was a lot of interest City & Guilds would offer one.

[Benzerari]

I have often wondered why city and guilds institute do not do C & G qualifications in fire alarms, I have done quite a few in regards to BS7671 wiring where you touch a tiny bit on fire alarms so why not a full C & G in BS5839-1or part 6 and then these could be NVQ level 3 and may be 4 & 5 etc. Maybe if there was a lot of interest City & Guilds would offer one.

I think fire alarm engineers with their various background and age should be the main people to raise this concern, also to help in to designing the relevant courses in addition to teaching them...

Experience counts so much into teaching the young generation on a practical training basis, within the existing alarm companies and as apprentice...

There are a lot to be done in this issue..., but I don't know why? no one care much about that, fire alarm represents the active part of fire industry, this latter is nearly the first growing sector in UK after IT by the way...

[Benzerari]

I have often wondered why city and guilds institute do not do C & G qualifications in fire alarms, I have done quite a few in regards to BS7671 wiring where you touch a tiny bit on fire alarms so why not a full C & G in BS5839-1or part 6 and then these could be NVQ level 3 and may be 4 & 5 etc. Maybe if there was a lot of interest City & Guilds would offer one.

I do agree, few decades ago, fire alarms where batteries powered, and then mains/batteries powered, and then conventional systems in which you can learn how to cope with through its manufacturer’s guides, particularly if you are technical enough or from electrical background…

However, today’s fire alarm systems are more computer driven systems, with their various types, analogue addressable systems, aspirated, video, integrated fire alarm systems within other BMS systems...etc.  also destined for different applications: buildings, marines, oil fields, nuclear power stations, space ships...., therefore it has to be through a graduates training to understand their working process and how to install, calibrate, service, commission... all of these stuff needs an institution to deliver such training courses, just like in the past it was a degree in mechanical engineering just some thing general education in mechanics and by the time it was split in many specialties… mechanical engineering for agriculture, oil field, marine, aviation, aeronautics,... etc

I think it's time to consider and apply the same analogies for alarm engineering qualification with many specialties too...

This is just my opinion

[sirparkinson]

On a recent FIA BS course I was told that an NVQ course was being developed for the Fire Alarm Industry.  The stumbling block....As usual...2 colleges which cannot agree on format, content etc.....Watch this space.....

[Graeme]

Up here is supposed to running one too.