The perimeter fencing manufacturer Zaun Limited reports approved installers for its intruder-resistant fencing ArmaWeave, produced on the world’s largest steel loom at the company’s West Midlands factory. Crime & Fire Defence Systems engineers were trained in the installation of the product and have installed kilometres of the woven fencing at utilities sites across the country over the last two years.
Zaun has formally accredited Wakefield-based Crime & Fire as approved installers of the product, with Zaun Group subsidiary Binns Fencing. Zaun has established the new installer scheme because of requests from customers to recommend contractors with suitable installation, quality and safety standards.
ArmaWeave, the product firm says, requires fresh skills and techniques to install. For example, unlike welded mesh the panels can rake up and down hills so the installers must square up or rake the panels. The wire of the panels has a tensile strength typically more than double welded panels which takes particular methods for cutting the panels during install.
Zaun will be training installers on the properties and tolerances of ArmaWeave and how it is made. It is aimed exclusively at fencers with skills and experience in high security fencing work and deals only with the specific new skills and techniques required to install ArmaWeave. Trainers will cover installation methods Zaun has developed for ArmaWeave to make best use of the properties of the fabric.
The training will be for experienced individuals sponsored by a company which can show membership of a relevant trade body and valid UKAS accredited ISO9001 certification. The certificate of training will only be valid while the individual is working for the host company. This will ensure properly trained individuals working under proper quality management install the product.
The plan is to increase the adoption of ArmaWeave as the standard for secure sites of Critical National Infrastructure – such as utilities, data centres and nuclear sites – while ensuring consistent installation.
Zaun sales and marketing director Chris Plimley said: ‘We invested in the steel loom ahead of the sales in the belief we could produce an innovative product installers, specifiers and high security facility managers would want. That has proven to be so true that we need to expand the number of contractors trained in installing it correctly.’
ArmaWeave’s properties, the makers say, add resistance to cutting attacks with hand, powered and non-contact tools. The tight mesh pattern provides no climbing aids, again limiting the potential for intrusion. ArmaWeave and can be combined with other intruder systems, electronics and access control. It has also been approved for use with a range of microphonic PID cable systems after testing for many months at an Ministry of Defence site.
Pictured, Zaun sales and marketing director Chris Plimley (left) marks the accreditation with Crime & Fire (from second left), director Craig Watts, director Pete Rushforth, Chris Singer and Stuart Fletcher.
