Case Study : Arkessa puts railway alarms on track for remote maintenance

Making sure that fire alarm systems in busy public places are routinely checked to be in working order is a major challenge for most organisations. This is especially true for those with many sites. However, combining mobile cellular networks with remote management tools can create real efficiencies for maintenance teams. And, it can improve service for their customers, too.

The challenge

To perform routine maintenance checks, diagnostics and configuration changes, service engineers need to access different items of equipment and systems in situ. By enabling engineers to connect to each site via ireless cellular networks, Arkessa makes it practical and affordable to monitor and maintain systems without always needing the physical presence of a service engineer.

Connecting to equipment remotely offers safety and efficiencies that translate into a better customer service. In turn, this can enable greater innovation in the business model itself. For example, a business built on income from call-out charges in response to failures and maintenance visits can be developed to move to an income stream from preventative monitoring and management, enabled by remote cellular connections.

Remote management enables problems to be detected before the customer is aware of them. Remedial action can be taken immediately, or scheduled to make the most efficient use of an engineer’s travel time. The remote approach, therefore, enables suppliers to offer improved maintenance contracts based on predictable expense.

An alarm maintenance company needed to make frequent checks on the systems installed at a number of UK mainline stations in the London area. Arkessa was asked to investigate the possibility of enabling remote access to the systems to support, or replace, field checks.

A solution

Having assessed the requirements, Arkessa designed a system as part of a proof-of-principle demonstration. It selected and configured a 3G router to create a direct connection to the fire panels. The router converted RS232 data in TCP/IP packets and connected the panel to Arkessa’s network. Private and secure static IP addresses were acquired automatically. Software tools, used to control the fire panels remotely, were installed on a management PC, along with a virtual serial port driver to convert traffic from the TCP/IP packets to a serial port within Windows.

The final part of the system was to establish a VPN connection between the alarm company’s management PC and Arkessa’s Centre for Remote Internet. This provided access to the private and secure static IP address of the 3G router.

With an installation or system development, such as this, Arkessa provides full reporting, instructions and configuration settings for all relevant equipment. Clients are given the templates and documentation required for them to install similar equipment at all sites, and are left secure in the knowledge that Arkessa can provide support as whenever required.

Benefits / outcomes

The client had originally believed it would take weeks to specify equipment, select the best mobile network operator, configure and debug the end-to-end system. However, Arkessa’s in-depth expertise and extensive experience in 3G wireless networking and remote management enabled it to specify and test a system within hours.

See remote management regarding Arkessa’s specific solutions.

For more information about this case study, or to discuss your own needs, contact Arkessa by calling:

+44 (0) 845 3311 668

For more information about Arkessa’s services, please contact us.