Maximising the uptime of communication systems by creating redundancy, maintaining, protecting and monitoring the physical layer of the system.
INS provides network solutions to maximise the uptime of communication systems by creating redundancy, maintaining, protecting and monitoring the physical layer of the system. Our products and services are appropriate for a wide range of industries including fire protection, intrusion, access control, petrochemical, industrial and mining industries.
We are both customer focused and eager to help the end-users of our products and services to become more efficient in their network maintenance by saving time and ultimately costs. INS customers are manufacturers, distributors and installers of life safety electronic equipment as well as companies that have large electronic communication networks.
Although the INS product range applies to many industries, the products were (to a large extent) inspired by part 13 of the EN54 life safety fire detection and fire alarm system standard. In essence part 13 is a standard for system performance where time is critical for life and safety against fire. With our focus on the uptime of communication networks and the improvement of the Quality of Service (QoS) of industrial networks, EN54-13 provided an important benchmark for our engineering development.
While we have offices in The United Kingdom and South Africa, our focus is international.
INS has a proactive network maintenance approach with its range of software products which allows for either on-site or remote monitoring of a network. This method of operation makes it possible to pre-empt network breakdowns or interruptions.
Additionally, these product offerings make it possible to qualify the physical layer of a communication network at time of handover. This qualification is supported by reports that are generated at the time of commissioning of the system.
Finally, in addition to physical layer redundancy, INS offers protocol redundancy through the use of a proprietary protocol which can supersede the physical layer of redundancy when needed. This protocol is transparent to the normal data, but special system input / output data can unobtrusively be communicated across the system.
At INS we have adopted new philosophies in the development of our network solutions for increased up-time. It is sometimes said that the physical layer with its divergent components is the most difficult to manage. Now the INS products make fault detection easy because of the way our products function (isolating segments) and providing visual diagnostic display of information which was previously invisible and inaccessible to users.
The INS network solutions which focus on the physical layer is a new approach to manage the QoS (quality of service) of industrial networks.
Given the requirements for super-fast operational response rates in the life safety industry, and the influence of its uptime standards requirements on the design of the INS product range, implementation of these INS network solutions will improve quality not only in life safety systems, but other industries as well.
In preparation for the introduction of more stringent system compliance requirements of the EN54-13 amendments, INS Technology is a good fit to execute the latest requirements of the draft specification.
INS is aspiring to adopt a leadership role in the industry through the introduction of higher QoS system availability.
Our product manufacturing is ISO9001 compliant.
The INS focus on the physical layer is a new approach to manage the QoS of industrial networks. The nature of various life safety industries necessitates a number of international specifications such as BS5839 part 1 (in Britain), SANS10139 (in South Africa) and EN54 part 13 (in Europe and other parts of the world that adopted EN54) to maximise communication continuity of networks. In some industries it is compulsory to provide redundant data paths.
To these ends the INS products are invaluable with their focus on increasing the QoS of networks through redundancy and intelligent fault detection combined with visual display. Prolonged delays of physical fault detection by technicians are no longer necessary. Not only do these products enhance system uptime; they also cut the financial cost of time-consuming physical fault detection.
“The fire alarm network at the Queen’s Medical Centre in Nottingham consists of 77 panels which use a bespoke RS-485 network card array, designed from the ground up for large complex fire alarm networks. After 19 years’ service spares for this network card were becoming unavailable and also the fire alarm network was suffering frequent breakdowns due to a combination of cables perishing with age, mechanical damage to cables and also increased electrical and electronic noise. INS Technologies were approached to replace the obsolete network card with a modern data network solution, the DNA card. The DNA Cards were installed over a four-week period and have resulted in a more stable and resilient fire alarm network, and the network is currently performing well. The DNA Cards have also filtered out the external influences allowing for a more efficient data flow. They have also identified issues with existing copper cables that require replacing and this will form part of an ongoing refurbishment programme.”
– Matthew Grimshaw,
Estates Capital Project Manager,
Nottingham University Hospitals Trust