New Focal4 Situational Awareness Platform Improves Life Safety and Business Continuity

  • Nov 04, 2014

Gamewell-FCI by Honeywell announces its release of the new Focal4 Shared Situational Awareness (SSA) system to streamline facilities’ day-to-day operations and greatly improve response to emergencies in buildings used for education, local government, healthcare, utilities, critical infrastructure, large retail, transportation and other commercial organizations.

Focal4 is a software platform able to aggregate information from all brands and variations of systems, including access control, video, fire alarm, HVAC, traffic, mobile devices and more. Focal4’s open architecture and scalability make it easy to implement and a great value for small facilities as well as multi-building complexes around the world.

As a natural extension of an organization’s security system, Focal4 provides a comprehensive picture of all events in and around a facility or campus, enabling security directors, emergency management officials and first responders to make fast, accurate emergency response decisions. Saving lives and preventing future emergency situations is a primary reason for any building, campus or municipality to utilize Focal4. Risk-averse organizations that must safeguard business continuity, minimize the possibly of litigation and protect their reputation are also ideal Focal4 candidates.

“It’s nearly impossible to mitigate an emergency situation when you only have information from one source. Imagine having to decide what do in when multiple emergencies are happening at the same time,” said John Stofa, municipal account manager for Honeywell Fire Systems. “Focal4 gives you the whole picture in real time so you can decipher what’s happening and respond quickly and appropriately.”

The ability of Focal4 to help streamline building operations is a growing trend many facility managers are starting to grasp. The culmination of data from various sources enables these managers to pinpoint costly inefficiencies or issues with HVAC, lighting systems, security procedures or false alarms. In many cases, the extra costs can be quickly nullified and managers can proactively prevent future issues as well.

By leveraging existing systems, rather than replacing them, Focal4 can protect these investments and maximize security too. The Focal4 SSA system can support standard operating procedures by sending critical information to specific personnel, in addition to repurposing historical data for required reports, training and future scenario response planning.

The Focal4 SSA system is a standard software package, which can be expanded to offer a variety of different features, all sold à la carte, allowing users to buy only the capabilities they need.

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