AUTOMATION
The controls that let a site look after itself: gates that know who’s arriving, lighting and power that follow the working day, and faults that reach someone before they become a call-out. We design, install and commission it, then support it afterwards.
Gates and barriers driven by number-plate recognition, fobs, intercom or a scheduled open period, so the yard isn’t gated by somebody answering a buzzer.
Access control that follows shift patterns, releases on the fire alarm, and gives a leaver’s credential one revocation across every door.
Zoned lighting on occupancy and daylight, with heating, signage and equipment circuits switched to the hours the building is actually used.
Plant, door and camera faults raised by email or SMS the moment they happen, so a failure is known about before the first person arrives to find it.
Ventilation, heating and extraction interlocked with occupancy and with each other, including run-on and frost protection where plant needs it.
Linking equipment from different manufacturers and eras so the gate, the intercom, the access control and the cameras behave as one system.
Three jobs that show the shape of this work. Figures are what the sites reported afterwards; your own numbers will depend on the hours you run and what’s already installed.
A builders’ merchant had one gate and an intercom, so every delivery meant someone leaving the counter. We fitted plate recognition to the existing gate motor and loaded the account customers’ vehicles, keeping the intercom for everyone else. Regular deliveries now enter unaided, and the gate closes behind them rather than being propped open through the morning.
A distribution unit lit its full floor from 05:00 to 22:00 regardless of which aisles were in use. We split the lighting into zones on occupancy detection, with a scheduled base level over the pick faces during shifts and a lower level elsewhere. Racking aisles now light as they’re entered, and the yard lighting follows dusk rather than a clock that drifted with the seasons.
A serviced building had door entry and a fire alarm that knew nothing about each other, so evacuation depended on someone breaking glass at each exit. We interfaced the access control to the fire panel for automatic release on alarm, added out-of-hours entry alerts to the building manager, and moved tenant changes onto one credential list instead of a spreadsheet per floor.
We look at what’s installed, how the site is used through the day and where the power and cabling already run, then tell you what can be reused.
You get a written proposal describing what will be installed, how it will behave, and a fixed price. Anything we think is optional is priced separately so you can decide.
Work is staged around your opening hours. Each function is tested with you present, including the failure modes: power cut, alarm active, and what happens when a device drops off.
You receive drawings, credentials and a written description of the settings, plus training for whoever manages it day to day. The same engineers cover it afterwards.
Most gate motors, door controllers and lighting circuits can be automated without being replaced. We say plainly when a unit is worth keeping and when it has reached the end of its parts availability.
Sites accumulate equipment from whoever was cheapest that year. We work across BFT, FAAC, CAME, Nice, Paxton, Axis and the rest, and interface between them rather than insisting on one badge throughout.
Where a full change-over is disruptive or expensive, it can be phased across budget periods, with each stage left fully working rather than half-commissioned.
Automation is quoted after a site survey rather than from a rate card, because the cost turns on what’s already installed and how much of it can be reused. The survey covers the existing equipment, the cabling routes and how the site runs through the day, and you receive a written fixed price before anything is ordered. Where a project is phased, each stage is priced separately so you can stop between them. Reactive attendance to a system we’ve installed is charged as ordinary fault response - see our pricing - and sites on a commercial maintenance agreement keep their agreed response times for it.