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A strange situation, you must admit: reliability is one of the most important characteristics of the TSB equipment, but the criteria for this reliability are often completely blurred. Of course, nothing lasts forever, and the level of development of technology and technology today is such that an innovation can become obsolete in a few months. But the customer — the same one whom, contrary to the rules of the Russian language, almost all players in the TSB market call in their press releases with a capital letter — wants to buy RELIABLE equipment. And he is also very conservative — at thousands of sites in dozens of countries around the world, analog camera lenses are aimed at security zones and video recorders are spinning their cassettes. That is, reliability was, is and will always be one of the main competitive advantages. That is why today we are talking about it. About reliability.
In this issue with you:
Mikhail LEVCHUK, Head of Marketing and Sales Department of the Argus-Spectr company
Dmitry STRELTSOV, regional manager (Russia and CIS) of Mitsubishi Electric
Andrey GORSHENIN, development director of Telecomstroy OJSC
Leonid STASENKO, RELVEST group of companies
Question for discussion
Reliability is one of the main criteria that customers use when choosing equipment. It is no coincidence that almost all manufacturers and sellers of technical security equipment declare this very reliability in their advertising materials. Are such statements always true? How to separate the wheat from the chaff? How to help the customer?
Mikhail LEVCHUK:
First of all, it is necessary to define the term «reliability». In my opinion, the concept of reliability of fire alarm systems includes:
reliable detection of intrusion or fire within the set time,
absence of false alarms that reduce confidence in the system.
With the current level of technology, it is relatively easy to achieve satisfactory detection reliability, which is confirmed by the presence of a corresponding certificate for the equipment.
However, the situation is different with false alarms. The reasons for their occurrence can be different, but the most painful are those associated with induced electromagnetic interference in communication lines, connecting lines and alarm loops.
In real conditions, at the location of, for example, components of fire alarm systems, there is a large number of various types of electromagnetic interference (fluorescent lamps, electric welding, etc.), which can only be taken into account by using special information processing algorithms based on the methods of probability theory and mathematical statistics.
It is impossible to predict in advance what the interference situation will be at the facility, therefore:
it is impossible to conduct full-fledged tests of equipment for electromagnetic compatibility in laboratory conditions;
it is impossible to claim 100% reliability without having sufficient implementation experience behind you.
The only way to separate the wheat from the chaff is to analyze the statistics of the equipment’s operation under real operating conditions.
Dmitry STRELTSOV:
Firstly, I would like to note the timeliness of this round table. On the one hand, the country, as well as the whole world, is going through, frankly, hard times. On the other hand, now, as never before, there is a high risk of falling into the direction of low-quality equipment, based only on its cost. And there are several prerequisites for this. On January 27, the head of the Main Directorate of Internal Affairs of the Moscow Region, Major General of Police Andrei Lipilin, said that «with an increase in unemployment by 1%, the crime rate grows by 5%». At present, we continue to observe an increase in unemployment, and, consequently, not only is the crime situation worsening, but the number of personnel whose tasks are to prevent illegal actions or investigate crimes is also decreasing. The trouble-free operation of equipment is the fulcrum of security systems. In fact, it is not so easy to determine the reliability of equipment. None of the manufacturers publish figures directly, and even if there are statistics, it is not always clear by what criteria they were created. Therefore, the price of the equipment can be used as the first and roughest estimate. This is not an indicator of reliability, but it will help separate the wheat from the chaff. And then you will have to decide on the quality of the grain.
Andrey GORSHENIN:
The manufacturer is driven by the desire to sell its products, so it will assure of their best qualities, will provide in the description any figures that, in its opinion, will increase the economic attractiveness of the product. The customer should pay attention to what source the manufacturer refers to as an expert in assessing the reliability of equipment. If there is no source, then such information should be treated with a degree of distrust.
In order to get an idea of the reliability of a certain piece of equipment in the absence of its main indicators measured in laboratory conditions, the consumer has to independently monitor the media, the Internet, read reviews on forums, and study information from independent sources. As a rule, the reviews are dominated by negativity, but this is a property of the human psyche. Rarely will anyone spend time writing a positive review, and it is easy to splash out dissatisfaction in the hope of getting a solution to the problem from other users or simply adding the product to the «black list». The lack of kind words in reviews of equipment is not necessarily an indicator of poor quality, but a large number of negative reviews indicating specific problems that owners or installers encountered should be a warning sign.
A reference point for reliable equipment can be to use the services of a large company that has been on the market for a long time. A company with a good reputation will always warn the customer about possible shortcomings of the equipment it works with.
Leonid STASENKO:
I agree: reliability is very important as an indicator of the quality of equipment or the security system as a whole. Surely, not all statements by suppliers correspond to the real state of affairs. Moreover, the reliability of a number of system nodes can be high, but one unreliable node will reduce all reliability indicators to zero. What if a hundred installed video cameras work flawlessly, and the expensive video recorder servicing these cameras goes for repair twice a year for a week or two?
Only statistical analysis can help the customer when choosing equipment; fortunately, most systems have been on the market for many years.
Question for discussion
What indicators can be used to judge the reliability of the equipment offered on the market? Why, in your opinion, are cases extremely rare when a manufacturer or seller is ready to provide a potential client with the statistical data necessary for choosing a fire alarm system: at what facilities does the system operate, for how long, under what conditions, what is the user training, the number of failures and complaints, etc.?
Mikhail LEVCHUK:
The reliability of the equipment is confirmed by the availability of the necessary Russian certificates. The availability of additional, for example, European, certificates: in Europe, especially in the field of fire safety, the requirements for fire alarm systems are more stringent.
By including the equipment in question in departmental lists. Anticipating skeptical comments about this statement, I would like to draw the attention of my esteemed colleagues to the mechanism for forming such lists. It is the statistics of use at specific sites that determines whether a device or system is on the list of those permitted for use or not. Not everything and not always is determined by so-called lobbying.
Dmitry STRELTSOV:
In theory, there are several methods for determining the reliability of equipment. For example, to evaluate the operation of electronic equipment, the MTBF (Mean Time Between Failure) parameter is often used — the mean time between failures, i.e. the average statistical time after which a failure will occur in the operation of a certain device. And although the MTBF value does not so much indicate the reliability itself and especially the durability of the equipment, as the percentage of defective products, a comparison of the MTBF of different equipment could give an initial idea of the degree of reliability.
In practice, simple statistics of equipment failures are used much more often. Every self-respecting user and manufacturer should have such statistics. But, answering the second part of the question, if such statistics show a failure rate of more than 20%, I do not think that anyone will decide to voluntarily distribute this information.
On the other hand, such approaches are controversial in terms of evaluation parameters. For example, an electric bulb either lights up or does not light up if its filament burns out. However, for any complex products, the concept of failure is quite relative. If a video recorder is recording, but is making a lot of noise, can it be considered to have failed?
The above methods assume that the number of failures per unit time is constant throughout the entire service life. In real life, this is certainly not the case. For a more accurate description of the failure times of samples put to the test, the Weibull distribution is traditionally used, named after the Swedish researcher Waloddi Weibull, who used it to describe the failure times of different types. The Weibull distribution determines the probability of failure over a short time interval, provided that no failure occurred at the beginning of the interval. Using this distribution allows you to calculate the reliability of the equipment, and therefore the costs of its repair, replacement and downtime in each period of its operation.
Andrey GORSHENIN:
The main properties of equipment that determine its reliability are failure-free operation, durability, maintainability and storability. There is a theory of reliability that includes a mathematical apparatus for calculating the main indicators, and there are also state and industry standards that regulate the methods of assessing and measuring these indicators. The reliability of products is most fully characterized by the following indicators: probability of failure-free operation, mean time to failure, failure rate and mean time between failures. All of them are calculated on the basis of laboratory tests on the corresponding batches of products.
Statistical data are not provided by many sellers or manufacturers either because they are not available — expensive studies are not conducted, there is no feedback from consumers — or because of the obviously low reliability of the equipment sold.
Leonid STASENKO:
Firstly, believe me, the manufacturer very rarely has information about the facilities where its equipment is installed, since the path from production to the consumer lies through a chain of distributors, dealers, and installers. But the manufacturer must have statistics on failures, since the equipment most often goes to the manufacturer for warranty and post-warranty repairs. I can say right away that our average percentage of complaints per year is about 0.2–0.3%, with half of the failures being component failures. Any surge in failures is immediately analyzed to determine the causes and take appropriate measures.
As for sellers who are closer to the end consumer, it is difficult for them to keep statistics on hundreds and thousands of items that pass through their hands. Although this does not justify them.
A question for discussion
Testing of various equipment is carried out quite regularly, but, as a rule, this is a private initiative of individual companies. What is your attitude to such experiments? Do you think that correct and objective laboratory testing of the reliability of a system is possible today? How do you imagine this process?
Mikhail LEVCHUK:
The Argus-Spectrum company takes an open position and regularly takes part in comparative tests. For us, the guarantee of objectivity and correctness of the testing results has always been the good name and reputation of the company that took on such difficult work.
Dmitry STRELTSOV:
In principle, I have nothing against various companies conducting their own tests. However, I would urge you to treat such studies as the subjective opinion of specific testers. An objective opinion can only be formed by obtaining test results from various sources and comparing them with user reviews. Ultimately, you need to understand that the purpose of these tests is to identify discrepancies between the functionality and the declared specification. In order to talk about the reliability of equipment, you need to test hundreds of samples over several years. Only a few manufacturers can handle such a task.
On the other hand, we have «testing grounds» in the country where thousands of devices from various manufacturers are tested in combat mode. I mean projects such as «Safe City», large players in the banking industry (ATMs), owners of chain stores or gas stations. If we take information on equipment failures in this industry and use statistics, for example, to build a Weibull distribution, then such material would be invaluable. But, to be fair, I can't imagine how such a process can be organized.
Andrey GORSHENIN:
Reliability is a calculated value, but its assessment requires costs. Correct testing is possible if sufficient funds are allocated for it, which are needed to create laboratories, attract qualified specialists, and purchase a large number of experimental materials. The question arises: where to find these funds? A large client interested in purchasing a large volume of equipment can pay for a laboratory assessment of the reliability of the equipment offered for purchase. A large manufacturer interested in selling large quantities of its equipment can also carry out reliability measurements at its own expense.
Unfortunately, there is practically no government regulation of reliability, so small and medium-sized manufacturers and their clients determine the reliability of equipment based on their own experience and on their own marketing research.
Leonid STASENKO:
Experimental confirmation of reliability indicators is a whole science. For example, to obtain adequate results in a limited time, there are methods for running equipment in an elevated temperature mode, around the clock. But not all measures suitable for testing household equipment are applicable to security systems. After all, our equipment usually works around the clock anyway, and there is no way to speed up the testing process.
Failure statistics appear automatically if the equipment starts to live its own life. But before that, it is important to use the right circuit solutions, select components correctly according to parameters and manufacturers. And, of course, conduct testing for resistance to extreme operating conditions: low and high supply voltage, temperature conditions, vibrations, etc.
Question for discussion
Who, what structure or organization can, in your opinion, conduct truly objective testing of TSB equipment? Is it possible to create such a structure? The degree of participation in this process and the motivation of other market players?
Mikhail LEVCHUK:
I repeat once again, objective testing of TSB equipment is an analysis of application statistics.
In the field of security technology, the most complete statistical picture in our country is provided by non-departmental security: hundreds of thousands of objects, the widest geography of technology application, a systematic approach to collecting and analyzing information, including with the involvement of specialists from the Scientific Research Center «Security».
Unfortunately, information on the use of fire-fighting equipment is fragmentary. On the one hand, everyone remembers the battles on specialized forums, for example, on the topic of «fire alarm + fluorescent lamp», on the other hand, there are no publications of any generalized results.
Recently, prerequisites for the creation of unified systems of automatic addressable fire monitoring have been created in Russia. It is obvious that the creation of such systems will encourage professionals to more carefully analyze the reliability of the operation of facility equipment. Otherwise, fire brigades will in most cases leave on false alarms.
Dmitry STRELTSOV:
Personally, I would be happy to participate in the creation of such a structure, but I do not believe that it will ever be created.
Andrey GORSHENIN:
Testing and providing objective conclusions can be carried out by government agencies, organizations receiving government subsidies or financed by any funds not interested in promoting specific brands. Today, research is most often carried out by consumers who need to equip a number of facilities. As a rule, these are large companies with large turnovers. Having calculated the possible losses from using low-quality equipment and compared them with the costs of testing, they decide to create experimental laboratories, which can subsequently be considered as a source of profit.
Leonid STASENKO:
It is unlikely that such a structure could be created that could serve even a part of the security systems market. The scope of work is such that it would require a very large organization with a considerable budget, and where can one get it, especially in the current situation? The reports in the press about independent testing are more advertising gimmicks than the results of real work. It is possible to conduct testing for compliance with the declared technical parameters, but not for reliability indicators, quite quickly.
Question for discussion
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«The equipment is certified» — what information does such a declaration convey to the customer? After all, it is known that certification centers test equipment for compliance with GOST requirements for safety, electromagnetic compatibility and other parameters related to the interaction of the tested equipment with the outside world in terms of its compatibility with it. The task of determining reliability is not even set. In addition, as a rule, the components of the system are certified: television cameras, monitors, recording devices, readers and ACS controllers. In no certificate will you read how, how effectively and reliably these components will interact. Do certification centers have real opportunities to determine how reliable the TSB equipment is?
Mikhail LEVCHUK:
«The equipment is certified» is a necessary, but certainly not sufficient condition for choosing equipment. And yet I do not agree with the statement that «the task of determining reliability is not even set.» National standards of any country are formed on the basis of many years of experience in using this or that equipment in specific climatic, geographical, and operational conditions. It is difficult to imagine that the sum «reliability» does not include the term «certified for compliance with GOST R XXX».
Regarding the reliability of joint operation of components from different manufacturers as part of a single system, the following example from European practice can be given. Every time companies achieve an integrated solution in the field of fire safety, they are obliged to pass the corresponding certification tests with it. For example, the well-known joint solutions of ESMI (manufacturer of control panels) and System Sensor (manufacturer of fire detectors).
Dmitry STRELTSOV:
In principle, the answer is contained in the question itself. Certification centers rely on GOST requirements, which do not have parameters for testing the “reliability” and “compatibility” of various equipment. In terms of interaction, one should rely on the logic of thinking and the professionalism of organizations that design, install, and service them. At my seminars, I often give examples of “illogical” technical specifications, the meaning of which boils down to one thing: there is no equipment that could equally effectively solve the problems of ensuring the security of any facility. Agree that different types of facilities require different levels of reliability. The tasks of video surveillance in a store selling bread differ from the tasks solved by the system in a jewelry store or a bank branch. And, therefore, the customer should not pay for excessive reliability of the equipment in the first case and, on the other hand, is obliged to have guarantees that the equipment will reliably perform the assigned tasks for organizing video surveillance at the facility.
Andrey GORSHENIN:
Mandatory certificates listed by the manufacturer in the product description do not guarantee reliability, since it is not measured during certification tests. These certificates indicate that the equipment complies with a short list of parameters determined by the testing method.
I have not heard of a reliability certificate that would determine the equipment's compliance with certain indicators.
The reason for the lack of information on compatibility is economic, since, like any other, testing of this kind requires funding.
Compatibility studies are conducted, but only in isolated cases where there is a significant risk of system failure due to equipment incompatibility and the damage from this to the supplier company exceeds the profit from the transaction. Such tests are usually performed by system integrators and rarely go beyond the scope of a specific contract.
Large manufacturers whose products do not cover the entire line of any system, test the compatibility of their components with components of other manufacturers and post information in documentation and on websites.
Leonid STASENKO:
The question already contains the answer: certification is simply confirmation of compliance with current safety and electromagnetic compatibility standards. Certification centers are not able to do more than they do. Otherwise, they need to significantly increase their staff and budget — at whose expense, excuse me?
Question for discussion
Imagine that you have a customer who wants to equip his facility with reliable equipment. What are your arguments?
Mikhail LEVCHUK:
Statistics, statistics and once again implementation statistics.
Dmitry STRELTSOV:
Lately, I have been deliberately avoiding postulates like “our equipment is reliable” and “the price/quality ratio of our equipment is the best”. It is much easier to operate with simple truths. Statistics from one of our customers show that out of 835 recorders installed over 5 years, 7 failed during the entire period of use. Another example is the results of the campaign held in the spring to find an “old” recorder. Here is a quote from a letter from one of the users: “This VCR has been working since 2004, it is constantly on in recording mode 24 hours a day. If I had not seen it, had not looked through the recordings, I would not have believed that even in this place it has been working continuously for 5 years.”
And the last argument is that we are almost always ready to provide equipment for testing. This is how the user can properly evaluate the quality of the recorded image, the intuitiveness of the menu (nobody reads the manual anyway) and ease of use.
Andrey GORSHENIN:
An indicator of reliability can be completed production facilities and customer reviews. As a rule, companies use the same equipment, and its reliability is tested in operation. There are regular partners, thanks to whom you can count on the supply of high-quality equipment.
Partially, the problem of increasing reliability is solved by continuous or selective incoming inspection of incoming equipment. Equipment sellers sometimes provide individual samples for testing, but in this case, one cannot talk about the reliability of the brand as a whole.
Leonid STASENKO:
Our equipment is already so well-known in Russia that the customer does not need to be told anything special about it. Although if he has specific questions, I am always happy to answer them.
Question for discussion
Reliability and service maintenance – how closely are these concepts related? Does the amount of funds invested in service affect the increase in reliability of equipment?
Mikhail LEVCHUK:
Of course. It is difficult to imagine that even the most advanced security system will exist at a real facility for any length of time without proper maintenance.
Dmitry STRELTSOV:
Reliability and service are inextricably linked concepts. But if you allow me, I will rephrase the question exactly the opposite: the funds invested in service depend on the reliability of the equipment. Our country is really huge. For example, 4.5 Japans could fit on the territory of the Northwestern Federal District. In short, you can’t drive from one end to the other performing service. That is why our equipment is often used in places that can be described as places with limited service capabilities. Some manufacturers offer 2-3 years of warranty service, but do not forget that this does not reduce the costs of a specialist’s visit, equipment downtime, and does not reduce the risks of losing video information.
Summarizing the above, I would note that assessing the reliability of equipment allows you to calculate the total cost of ownership, which is determined not only by the initial costs, but also by the cost of using the equipment over several years.
Andrey GORSHENIN:
The more reliable the equipment and, therefore, the less likely it is to fail, the lower the cost of ownership, in particular, the service costs.
The client must compare the profitability of the two approaches and choose one of them. The first is inexpensive, but not very reliable equipment requires a large stock of spare parts, high service costs, both its own and from the manufacturer. The second is more expensive, but reliable and high-quality equipment requires fewer spare parts and lower service costs.
Investing in service does not affect the reliability of the equipment, since its reliability is a property built into it during production. Competent organization of service maintenance, including the presence of a «hot spare parts warehouse» at the client or at the integrator/seller/manufacturer, can only reduce the amount of downtime associated with equipment failure.
Leonid STASENKO:
Reliability, service and, I would add, brand reputation – all these things are closely interconnected. Service includes both consultations and training, as well as issues of complaints, replacement and repair of equipment. There is no such thing as absolutely reliable equipment. Aerospace equipment is tested so much, and planes and spaceships sometimes crash or explode at launch. Thank God, our equipment does not lead to such disastrous consequences.
Since failures exist and will always exist, it is necessary to: a) solve the customer’s problem as quickly as possible by repair, replacement – whatever, and b) closely monitor the causes and statistics of failures, taking timely appropriate measures to reduce failures. And, of course, the funds invested in this will definitely pay off, because nothing is as expensive as the reputation of the product and the company that produces it. That is why customers often prefer to pay a little more for similar equipment, knowing that they will not be left alone with it if any problems arise.
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