Simplex.
The American company Simplex was founded in 1894 by the inventor of timers for recording working hours Edward Watkins and initially specialized in the production of these devices. In the first years of its work, the company did not have a wide range of manufactured products, and its main advantage was the constant expansion of its presence in the market by opening new branches and acquiring companies working in related areas. In 1958, after purchasing part of the IBM company, Simplex not only became the largest American manufacturer of timers, but also entered a new market — the market of fire alarm systems and multiplex systems.
Over the next decades, Simplex gained worldwide recognition and became a leader in the field of high-tech fire alarm systems, which were installed in the most important facilities around the world: in government buildings, educational institutions, large corporations, etc. In 2001, Simplex accepted an offer from Tyco International Ltd and merged with Grinnell Fire Protection, a part of Tyco Fire & Security since 1976.
Tyco Fire & Security, which includes Simplex, currently employs more than 90,000 people, 950 of whom are research engineers and developers of new equipment. Tyco Fire & Security's annual sales volume is billion, and the company's 1,200 offices operate in more than 100 countries around the world. The corporation creates about 600 new products annually, with equipment being manufactured at 35 production sites.
Simplex headquarters, research laboratories, R&D center, World Visitor Center (WVC) and manufacturing facilities are located in Westminster, Massachusetts, USA, on over 200 acres. Simplex branded security and fire alarm equipment dominates the US markets, with fire alarm systems accounting for 42.7% of the market and access control systems accounting for 24.2%.
Fire alarm systems manufactured under the Simplex brand are used in large and medium-sized facilities, but are most effective in high-rise buildings and in geographically distributed facilities of large companies. Thanks to the ability to exchange data via optical cable between Simplex fire panels at a distance of up to 32 km, it is possible to implement a fire safety system, for example, for large factories, the buildings of which are distributed over vast areas of up to tens of hectares.
The most popular on the Russian market is the addressable analog multifunctional fire alarm system Simplex, which is based on the 4100/4100U control and monitoring devices. Many years of experience in operating such systems both in Russia and abroad have shown their reliability and efficiency when working at facilities of almost any complexity. As an example, we can cite the successfully functioning fire alarm systems in the office buildings of Russian Railways, the ENKA Tower in Moscow City, the Marriott and Ritz hotels, oil platforms on Sakhalin Island, etc.The address capacity of one 4100U Simplex device is up to 2,000 addressable devices, and when combined into a 4120 network with a fail-safe ring or distributed structure, the Simplex fire alarm system can control up to 392,000 addressable devices. Thanks to the support of BACNet and Modbus protocols, as well as OPC technology, this system is compatible with systems and equipment from various manufacturers, which allows it to be used in large facilities and in intelligent buildings as part of a comprehensive security and dispatching system. In addition, this system can perform the functions of zone voice or sound notification, fire intercom and evacuation control.
In addition to the 4100U panel, the Simplex fire alarm system includes the following devices and software:
– TrueAlarm addressable analog smoke fire detectors with adjustable sensitivity and the ability to pre-notify about smoke chamber contamination;
– TrueAlarm addressable analog heat fire detectors of maximum and maximum differential action;
– Simplex 4099 series addressable manual call points;
– addressable modules for evacuation control of fire-fighting and engineering systems of a building with connection to IDNet Simplex loops;
– IMS central graphic center — a visualization program with the ability to create graphic plans and with an expanded reporting system that can monitor up to 50,000 points.
All Simplex brand equipment for the fire alarm system has Russian certificates of compliance with fire safety standards, and also has an optimal price/quality ratio among fire systems of the same class.