As you may be aware, the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 came into force in its entirety on 1st October 2006. What this means to the majority of organizations that will be purchasing fire alarm systems is that they must be seen to be doing all that they can to ensure that risks are minimized and compliance is assured. It also means that more organizations that operate fire alarms will require regular and thorough maintenance of their fire alarms.

What this in turn means for you is that there is a growing market for the design, installation, commissioning and hand over of fire alarm systems and a massive market for the verification and maintenance of those systems. However, more and more of your fire alarm customers will need you to obtain BAFE Approval for this work as an assurance of your professionalism.

There are two main ways of obtaining BAFE Approval. The first is to wade through SP203 (and all the amendments) yourself, identifying any changes that are required. If you have already tried this, you know that it isn’t the easiest thing in the world to get right the first time, or the second time, or even the third time and many areas of your organization may be overlooked or left out of the change process.

The easy way to ensure approval is to get EQM Ltd to carry out a gap analysis with you. This would identify all areas of your organization and your quality system that require change or update and we would work with you to produce an action plan that identifies time scales and key tasks. In many cases, we can give you the forms, procedures and process maps that you need in order to effect those changes and we can provide staff training on the changes being implemented.