By Julie Brown, Executive Director of Business Transformation – Services, Johnson Controls 

A major airport in the Pacific Northwest was expanding to add an additional terminal. In order to scale up while protecting the safety of travelers, the airport needed to upgrade its outdated fire panels throughout the building. The airport’s existing system was old and routinely required long waits for parts that were no longer mass produced; during the wait for new equipment, the airport had to employ a fire watch to manually handle fire safety measures.

To address these concerns, the airport engaged Johnson Controls to upgrade the full system to the latest fire safety technology while reducing expenses and enabling greater scalability long-term.

A Collaborative Approach Backed with Expertise

The Johnson Controls team worked closely with the customer to assess the situation and propose a plan of action, meeting bi-weekly to ensure all stakeholders were aligned. The customer was particularly pleased that Johnson Controls was able to complete the update without having to rip and replace the entire system.

While the previous system was difficult to maintain and resulted in significant downtime, the new 4100 ES system installed by Johnson Controls has backward and forward compatibility, ensuring it can be integrated with other equipment as needed. The Simplex ES Network is a high bandwidth IP-based fire alarm network that uses industry standard network technology and infrastructure for greater design and installation flexibility.

Additionally, Johnson Controls installed advanced emergency voice communications panels in order to facilitate airport-wide emergency communication – the panels are connected with the other fire equipment and form part of a mass notification system. With these in place, airport facilities administrators and life safety personnel are able to better manage emergency situations and mitigate harm in the case of a fire.

A Fire System That Enables Greater Flexibility and Cost Savings

Thanks to these airport-wide fire system upgrades, the airport is able to expand operations and attain greater facility adaptability knowing that the safety of employees and travelers will be protected. For instance, the facility is now able to direct all traffic to a single baggage claim area in order to better optimize space for new terminals.

Additionally, given the current labor shortage that is likely to continue throughout 2022, the airport will be less dependent on a fire watch team as equipment can be easily repaired, upgraded or replaced if needed without long wait times.

Finally, the upgrades were advantageous from a business perspective, thanks to the equipment’s backward and forward compatibility allowing it to be easily upgraded for years to come. The airport will limit expenses from having to fully replace equipment like smoke detectors, monitor modules and heat detectors.

To learn more about how Johnson Controls supports airports across the world, visit https://www.johnsoncontrols.com/industries/transportation.