Calculation of the cost of warranty and post-warranty maintenance of technical security systems.
The cost of work, even during the initial installation of the system, is quite difficult to accurately estimate. Especially the cost of work during subsequent maintenance. Even if you have some statistics saying that, for example, 3% of video cameras will fail in the first two years, at a specific facility out of 50 cameras, 5 may fail, or maybe none. Even under absolutely identical conditions.
In general, there are two approaches to forming the contract amount when carrying out construction work: a fixed price and payment for work actually performed. For the initial installation of a security system, a fixed price is often preferred; the cost of installation work for such systems can be easily and accurately estimated in advance (at least after a thorough inspection of the facility and drafting a project). However, the amount of work during subsequent maintenance is much more difficult to estimate. What is even worse is that the risk of expensive repairs to the main equipment, the probability of which is low — a few percent — is something that installation (service) organizations really do not like to take on, because if for the customer (for example, Gazprom) replacing equipment for 3 million rubles is a trifle, then for many installation organizations in our industry this amount can mean the difference between development and bankruptcy. Statistically, the average figure for the probability of failure of 1% is comforting only if you have collected hundreds of such service contracts. Of course, it is for such cases that risk insurance was invented, but insurance companies do not have sufficient experience in calculating such risks, so the most common option for post-warranty maintenance is payment for work actually performed.
More precisely, the question of choosing a payment method is decided based on the ratio of the cost of expensive (but unlikely) repair work and the cost of mandatory routine maintenance work on periodic inspection and maintenance. For example, in the case of a video surveillance system, routine maintenance is limited to vacuum cleaning, checking the functionality and, at most, checking the signal quality or cable resistance. The only serious work on cleaning, lubrication and replacing worn parts in video recorders is now a thing of the past. On the other hand, if, for example, a video recorder fails, it will have to be replaced (the price of a new recorder), since most modern products are not repairable. Or if a rotating video camera installed on a tricky bracket around the corner fails, you will have to call a lift again and pay for high-altitude work with a winter coefficient.
At the same time, for example, if we are talking about a fire alarm system, then most of the equipment (detectors) costs 100 rubles, and the most expensive equipment (PPK) costs 2000 rubles, and any of them can be easily replaced in 15 minutes. On the other hand, honest routine maintenance includes checking the sensitivity of detectors using aerosol smoke simulators, for which you need to go around all the detectors with a stepladder. That is, mandatory work that needs to be done about once a quarter is significantly more expensive than possible additional repair work. Of course, in this case, it is easier to set a fixed price for the service contract.
Please note that warranty service, although it is even more difficult to assess the probability of certain works (by the time of concluding a post-warranty contract, at least some experience has already been gained at this facility with specific equipment), is most often fully included in the cost of the primary contract on a fixed price basis. At the same time, the cost of service is noticeably inflated (the contractor tries to protect itself from risk as much as possible). There are several reasons for such behavior of both the customer and the contractor, and all of them are rather psychological.
Firstly, it is psychologically more pleasant for the customer to realize that he can be free from thoughts about the system for several years. And an increase in the cost of the contract by 5-10% does not seem so significant. The situation is similar to buying a car: the difference in the price of a new and used car significantly exceeds the possible costs of repairing a car out of warranty, this difference is paid for the psychological comfort of the warranty period.
Secondly, it is much easier for a specific representative of the customer (usually the head of the security service) to get funding for a contract with a guarantee once, than to subsequently separately explain to the management the need to pay more and more amounts (even if small).
The contractor, for his part, has the opportunity to more easily justify the cost of maintenance against the background of the initial cost of the system (and also include a reserve for risk). In addition, the money for warranty maintenance will be received now, in cash, and the work will have to be done later, and perhaps it will be possible to skip it altogether. This is rather an economic calculation: if the company develops successfully (and for this, money is needed now, not later), then it will not be difficult for it to fulfill its obligations under old contracts. But if the company goes under, then there is no case for nothing…
A popular solution is to immediately include the necessary stock of equipment in the spare parts kit when the system is delivered. This is very wise, otherwise in 2-3 years you will probably not be able to find the same equipment for replacement and you will have to use tape and a soldering iron to adapt new modifications of equipment, sometimes even from a different manufacturer, to replace the failed one. In such a case, for the duration of the warranty period, the contractor is usually obliged to restore the failed products so that the stock in the spare parts kit is maintained in the same volume, but there is no need to do this urgently.
Here we touched upon an important point that is often underestimated – the need to stipulate the time for restoring the system’s operability. This includes the response time of the service organization to a request in the event of a sudden system failure, as well as the time for dismantling/assembling the inoperative equipment and, possibly, the time for its restoration or replacement (if the spare parts kit does not contain the appropriate equipment). In some cases, the restoration time is very important, for example, if the technical security system at a nuclear power plant is not restored within a reasonable time, then the nearby combined arms unit is raised on alarm and a cordon is set up around the entire territory of the nuclear power plant. And if this continues for several days, you can imagine the intensity of emotions in the head of the station’s security service (he also has to be at the facility almost without breaks all this time).
It is also very important for the contractor whether he is obliged to restore the product within 24 hours (for this he must actually have a spare part in his warehouse), or whether he has 3-4 months to leisurely order spare parts from the manufacturer or take the product to an authorized service center and wait until everything is done there in the general queue.
Please note that in some cases the customer may require repair of the failed products rather than their replacement. This is typical for government agencies and similar highly bureaucratic organizations, where it is essential that the serial number of the device «on the balance sheet» is preserved. Of course, if there is absolutely no way to repair it, then you will have to arrange for a replacement, but you will curse everything, proving to the customer's accounting department that the device offered for replacement is not inferior to the one being replaced in technical parameters, and most importantly, that its book value corresponds to the one being replaced, taking into account depreciation (otherwise you will either receive an unjustified profit or make a free gift, which is incomprehensible to the tax inspectorate). In most cases, the simplest solution is to transfer a part of the case from the old one to a completely new product with a sticker indicating the serial number. This is often possible, even if the old products are no longer manufactured, since new products are usually smaller than the old ones and can be mounted in the case of the old one. In the most extreme case, you simply write off the new product installed on the object as if it were not there, and since the system is working again, you arrange for the dismantling of the old (failed) one to the warehouse as unnecessary due to changed circumstances. The accounting department is happy, the old product is listed as working, but in stock, and according to the documents, the new product does not exist at all. This is also a violation of the accounting rules, but such a violation is unlikely to be detected by the tax inspectorate during an audit.
This headache with serial numbers «on the balance sheet» is also one of the reasons why it is useful to immediately stock up on backup products, perhaps by including a clause in the warranty service agreement that they will not be restored if they fail «due to technical inexpediency».
A bit of math: how to estimate the probability of equipment failure. Some manufacturers provide data on the average time between failures (or the probability of failure per year). Unfortunately, in most cases, this data is obtained by extrapolation or calculation based on some models. In real life, it turns out that products manufactured in one year do not fail at all, and those manufactured in another year are sure to fail in a couple of years, because they contain a defective batch of components. In most cases, regardless of the manufacturer's data, you can use the general statement that any modern industrial electronics without moving parts (including without fans), as a rule, have a mean time between failures of about 30 years. Add an adjustment for the manufacturer's reliability, country of origin, class of products (bulky military-type products are usually more reliable) and you get an estimate of 10-100 years. That is, the probability of failure per year will be from 1% to 10%. However, numerous studies suggest that the probability of failure in the first year is significantly higher than in the next few years, and then rises again to 3-5% per year. So, the probability of failure in the first year will be approximately 2-20%, in the second and subsequent years — 0.5-5%. Do not forget that in the first year you can usually make a claim to the manufacturer, so the real costs of repair and replacement will not be so great. Although for completely rootless manufacturers with the highest assessment of the probability of failure and hope for free repairs there is almost no hope.
Warranty repairs, as a rule, do not include replacement of consumables. In particular, lamps in the lighting system (unless, of course, these are ordinary lamps, and not special LED IR spotlights). These works can and should be carried out directly by the employees of the facility. A certain supply of consumables can be included in the spare parts kit immediately upon delivery of the system, but is almost never calculated for the entire warranty period — it is important that the operating organization learns to purchase the correct consumables while the system is still under the control of the supplier.
There is another class of minor repair work that may cause controversy, so it is better to clearly stipulate whether it is included in the work performed by an external contractor or carried out by the customer's services. These are works such as painting fences, replacing (straightening) bent brackets and cable trays, repairing doors and door frames, cosmetic repairs to the finish of surfaces adjacent to doors or turnstiles (for example, ceramic tiles adjacent to turnstiles often fall off due to vibrations caused by mass passages through the turnstile).
As already mentioned, in addition to unpredictable repair work, a number of quite planned routine maintenance works are also included in the service contract. The simplest is cleaning from dust/dirt. You should not trust this work to regular cleaners — undesirable consequences are very likely. In addition, many devices should be cleaned from the inside, and cleaning them definitely should not be trusted to cleaners. For example, everyone knows that regular computers can get pretty clogged with dust (though not all of them are regularly vacuumed from the inside). In addition to cleaning, it is sometimes necessary to lubricate moving parts, but apart from the VCRs mentioned, such work only applies to turnstiles and some locks.
The most important routine maintenance is the operability check. In the simplest case, it is enough to test the functioning of the system components (for example, rotate the rotating video cameras). For many devices (for example, turnstiles at the checkpoint), this does not even require special actions — they are checked daily a thousand times. However, even many access control devices are not used for months or even years. This is especially true for emergency and fire exits.
The situation is much worse with checking the functionality of various sensors. Not only is it impossible to create fair conditions for checking many of them — for example, for fire sensors or wall break sensors — but it is also necessary to take measures to ensure that nothing extraordinary happens when a sensor is triggered — the fire extinguishing system does not turn on or all the doors do not lock. In addition, since we are taking the entire system out of normal mode, it is necessary to provide for compensatory measures. For example, during the check of the functionality of the perimeter alarm, it is necessary to post a guard along the perimeter — after all, nothing will prevent intruders from quietly crossing the line of protection at this time.
Quite a complex issue is the methodology (depth) of equipment testing. As a rule, two types of tests are included in the work schedule. Quite often, simple testing is carried out — it works, and that's it. However, more thorough testing is carried out occasionally. The table below shows typical types of work that are carried out when testing the main types of equipment. It is not at all necessary to conduct the same types of testing at the same time. For example, a typical schedule of routine maintenance includes weekly testing of all video cameras, monthly testing of security alarms and quarterly testing of fire alarms, twice a year testing of connections between systems and vacuum cleaning, twice a year (at the beginning of winter and at the beginning of summer) testing of the quality of the video signal, and only once a year or even twice a year testing of the sensitivity of fire alarms. When drawing up such a schedule, it is necessary to take into account what work can be carried out by the employees of the facility, and what by the employees of a specialized organization, so that the contractor's employees do not have to visit the facility too often, but nevertheless they visit it regularly — this allows you to solve many issues in between and discover problems that may seem insignificant to the employees of the facility.
Please note that many types of modern equipment are capable of automatically conducting self-testing remotely or even in standby mode, without stopping normal operation. The scope of such self-monitoring and the need for manual monitoring of other parameters depends on the specific equipment — science and technology are moving forward very quickly. For example, constant monitoring of wire resistance is now becoming the norm for fire alarm control panels (although most only monitor to ensure that the resistance does not go beyond the specified limits, but many also monitor small deviations, which allows for early detection of a malfunction before it becomes a problem). Video signal amplitude monitoring (and even indirect resolution monitoring — by the presence of high-frequency components) can increasingly be found in video recorders. Self-monitoring of security alarms by the presence of signals from people passing by (at least in the form of protection against obstruction) is also very popular. Addressable analog fire alarms, as a rule, are generally capable of constant self-monitoring and even independently determine when it is time to clean them from dust.
Finally, having described the main points that need to be kept in mind when calculating the cost of maintenance, I will finish as a pessimist-realist: the cost of a maintenance contract (no matter whether it is warranty or post-warranty) is usually determined by eye — as much as the customer considers acceptable. As a rule, the customer estimates this as a percentage of the total cost of the system. And only then, for a given amount, the contractor will draw up an acceptable set of works. Moreover, when the money runs out, the contractor will look for arguments as to why he will not carry out certain works, why this or that case is not covered by the warranty, but is caused by incorrect actions of the operating personnel. Again, in most cases, the decision is still made «according to concepts», and the technical justification for the decision is prepared «for the given answer». Indeed, if the contractor does not want to do something, then you can, of course, sue, but during the entire period of the trial (i.e. two or three years), your system will be inoperative and without regular maintenance. In the worst case, the contractor will simply go bankrupt and will do nothing at all. On the other hand, if the customer demands something that you do not want to do, you can, of course, refuse, go to court, but then you will have no chance of subsequently renewing the service contract or concluding a new contract for equipping a newly erected neighboring building. With common sense and good will, an acceptable solution will always be found. For example, the contractor will do something that he is not obliged to do or even obliged to do, but did not expect to do at all (an emergency occurred with a probability of 0.01%), and the customer will turn a blind eye to the fact that the repair will take not one hour, but five months, and routine maintenance will be carried out half as often as planned, and according to a shortened version, in order to somewhat compensate for the contractor's financial costs.