A new £5m car showroom in Kent owned by the Jardine Motors Group is using a fire alarm control panel that links its heat, flame and smoke detectors. The selected product, the L@titude from Hochiki Europe, was specified for being able to fit in with the showroom’s sleek aesthetics.
Jardine Motors Group, founded in 1969, has 70 UK franchises that represent 17 car manufacturers. The Jardine showroom in Tonbridge offers Jaguar and Land Rover vehicles. The new addressable life safety platform L@titude covers two floors of high-value space. As with all of Hochiki Europe’s products, L@titude is compliant with European and global safety standards, including EN54-2, EN54-4 and EN54-13.
Hochiki says it designed the panel to maximise usability so maintenance teams and duty managers can locate safety breaches in real-time from any location. The product uses a colour touchscreen display which displays information about each detection device within the showroom. The product also has a 10,000 capacity event log, up to 144 zone indicators and can support up to 5,000 cause and effect entries.
The fire safety product manufacturer worked with the facilities manager, Roger Dawkins, at the Tonbridge showroom, giving him a guided tour around its factory in Gillingham as well as consultation on the final aesthetic design. The modular nature of the control panel meant field wiring could be connected to a passive motherboard; to which electronic hardware can be added and re-configured without disconnecting older wiring. This, in turn, enabled a turnaround of the project for works to be completed on time and within budget.
Neil Eves, systems manager for Hochiki Europe, said: “After understanding the requirements of the showroom, we knew L@titude was the perfect solution. Operating from a 2-8 loop circuit capacity (With 2- 16 loop variant available if required) it can support up to 2,000 zones, recording 10,000 incidents making it ideal for larger developments such as this. To demonstrate its capabilities and our unique manufacturing operations, we invited Roger down for a personal tour of the Hochiki Europe’s factory to show, first hand, our detailed production process for a wide variety of products.”
After the installation, Roger Dawkins said: “We were absolutely blown away with the professionalism and level of support shown by Hochiki Europe; both of which were demonstrated from our tour of the manufacturing facility in Gillingham and their ongoing liaison. Having the chance to see the production and design process gave us reassurance in their ability to provide state-of-the-art life safety systems which would meet our needs as a business. This end-to-end support was a truly personalised experience, with Hochiki Europe even taking on-board our suggestions for improvements. Taking such an interest in our needs confirmed our decision in choosing them as our manufacturer and ultimately our trust in their products.”
Jardine Motors is exploring the roll out of L@titude across its showrooms nationwide.
Visit www.hochikieurope.com/latitude.
