There appears to be an expectation – even impatience – in the industry that all the necessary equipment for PD6662 installations will be available by the end of this year.

It is worth remembering that a significant part of the weight behind the introduction of the "dual-running" period came from the manufacturers – for very good reason.

The amount of work required to bring even a CIE (Control and indicating Equipment or “alarm panel”) originally designed for use with EN50131-1:1997 up to scratch for use with PD6662:2004 is considerable.

Completing detailed product specifications and re-writing the software is a major exercise and testing and de-bugging the result even more so. Add to this the problems that arise from continuing improvement in understanding

of what is required, and we have a major development, which for some manufacturers must be little short of designing a new product ... which might even be an easier proposition!

We were not in receipt of sufficient documentation to start work until September – and debate has still not permitted D243:2004(5?) to be released for publication.

In truth, "start" is all that we can do. At the time of writing (mid November), no manufacturer has any idea how to make a CIE that permits full compliance!

PD6662 clause E.1.1. is the sticking point. This (an insurance requirement, I understand) requires for the first time that the CIE responds if either path of an alarm transmission system is faulty – whereas prEN50131-1 includes requirements valid only if all paths are down, as now (eg 8.3.5, 8.6).

Currently no protocol exists for passing this level of information from ATE (alarm transmission equipment) to CIE – so how can we design suitable equipment?

In view of the well-documented intention of insurers to insist on high grade dual-path signalling for a very high proportion of installations at all grades, it is pointless developing equipment suitable only for single-path signalling.

Therefore, until the ATE manufacturers agree on how to provide this level of information, CIE manufacturers are well and truly stuck.

Steps are being taken to resolve this issue through the BSIA, so hopefully the information will be agreed and available by the end of the year so that we can make real progress.

Implementing this – which could even lead to hardware changes in ATE and/or CIE – will add to the time required, taking us well into 2005!

In the meantime, the industry needs to be patient, allowing manufacturers the time they need to do a very complex job properly.

Insurers especially need to hold back from insisting on use of PD6662:2004 immediately some suitable equipment becomes available – it would be seriously damaging to the industry as a whole not to allow all manufacturers adequate time to resolve the issues relevant to them.

Very early claims of compliance, for CIE especially (I know, there are some about already) should be treated with some caution.

Brian Harrington, Customer Service Manager, Castle Care-Tech Ltd, North Street Winkfield, Windsor, Berkshire SL4 4SY

Source

Security Installer