Industry Vertical
Protecting the Goods
- By Ralph C. Jensen
- Apr 01, 2016
You already know you’re going to put
some of that expensive security equipment
outside in the elements. You also
know how brutal the elements can be
on sophisticated electronic solutions.
Now, you can protect wireless devices and products
that must be mounted outdoors, or even submersed
in water.
From design to production, Mier Products, Inc.
has put a lot of thought into the research and design
of enclosures so that you know when you have completed
a security install, the equipment is going to
work, and it will be protected. And now, along with
Mier’s line of painted metal enclosures, they offer enclosures
produced out of polycarbonate to enhance a
superior performance.
Mier Products, which features an off-the-shelf line
of enclosures, has also specialized in manufacturing
custom enclosures since the start of the company.
Bob Hullinger, president of the company, said that
it takes experience, coupled with skilled workers and
designers, to get a customer the custom enclosure he
envisions. He also said the development of an enclosure
is based on the countless enclosures they have designed
since the late 1980s, though technological advances
over the years have dictated the ever-changing
enclosure lineup.
“Complete drawings are ideal, but we can fashion
a design and a prototype using whatever method
a customer uses to present his ideas and basic concepts,”
said Bob Hullinger. “While we still fabricate all
types of indoor and outdoor electrical enclosures, recent
emphasis has been in wireless technology where
our polycarbonate enclosures are ideal.”
“The design of these enclosures makes them perfect
for use in the harshest of environments, such as
coastal areas, oil refineries, electrical construction,
irrigation systems, chemical processing facilities,
water-treatment plants, car wash operations, sewage
plants, utility fields, instrumentation, machine building
and HVAC, anywhere protection from rugged
environments is demanded,” said Scott Hullinger,
vice president and COO at Mier Products. “In the
case of wireless products, non-metallic enclosures
are perfect for the application because antennae or
transmitters may be mounted inside the enclosure
without hindering the reception or transmission of
radio wave signals.”
Just as the technology in the security industry has
changed, so it has been with protective enclosures.
The appeal of polycarbonate enclosures is far-reaching
because of superior performance in many different
environments. Three important considerations
for using polycarbonate boxes include high-impact
strength, their non-corrosive (no rust) abilities, and
they are non-conductive, eliminating a shock hazard.
Maybe it’s just an enclosure to the untrained eye,
but the fact is, each poly product undergoes stringent
testing and certification to receive an Underwriters
Laboratory (UL) rating. This goes along with appropriate
testing for NEMA ratings for an enclosure on
the outside of a building, for instance, as well as with
submersible housings.
As with any research and development of products,
Mier listens to its customers’ ideas and thoughts
for improvements.
“Perhaps the most important part of research and
development of new products is listening; the discovery
of the product idea,” Hullinger said. “In our case,
we have developed many new products, thanks to our
customers who generate ideas. The recent results are
much-needed accessories to go along with our outdoor
NVR, DVR and CPU Lockboxes; the addition of several
new outdoor temperature controlled rack enclosures,
and a new addition to our Drive-Alert line.”
“Many customer product suggestions aren’t very
subtle because customers thought the products were
“naturals” for us and complemented products in our
standard enclosure lines,” Hullinger said.
One recent example is customers had a say in
the development of Mier’s new outdoor/indoor fancooled
enclosures. Mier’s temperature controlled line
had always been NEMA 4/4X/12, and included air
conditioning and heating units to protect fire panels,
NVRs and other electronic equipment often found inside.
However, suggestions from installers have said
that in some cases this amount of temperature control
was just overkill. So, Mier developed a NEMA 3R
fan-cooled line for installation where air conditioning
or heating is not needed, but a constant exchange of
ambient air and air inside the enclosures satisfied the
demands. Important features of these units include
rain/weather shrouds over ventilation openings, gaskets,
and thermostatically controlled fans, which can
exchange the internal air of the enclosure at 80, 131
or 300 cubic feet per minute depending on the model,
plus a second filtered entrance which allows the exchange of the air. Filters need to be
kept clean and must not be blocked to
permit proper operation.
“Our NEMA rated outdoor enclosure
lines come with differing options,
but all are designed with the capabilities
of meeting the NEMA and temperature
control standards our customers
are looking for, which means they are
for either indoor or outdoor use and
provide a degree of protection from
incidental contact with the enclosed
equipment and against weather and
dust,” Hullinger said.
Mier Products has long been American
made, and American proven. The
company began its enclosures plan in
1987 when Robert Hullinger and a (then)
partner opened for business. It wasn’t
long however, when industry technology
was changing the way security was
approached. Enclosures, however, seem
to be the last thing people think of, but
they have tremendous value.
Small businesses in the United States
seem to know where to turn when they
are tasked with securing a much larger
customer. For instance, Ron Harker,
the COO at Convoy Technologies in
Ft. Wayne, Ind. Convoy contracts with
commercial trucking fleets to ensure
the cargo departs and arrives safely
and intact. To do this, Convoy worked
with Mier Products to design and built
a custom enclosure for the onboard
DVR, which stores images of the driver
and the load.
“The enclosure, which has a fan to
mitigate heat, secures the images and
protects the DVR,” said Harker. We
spent about 45 days designing what we
wanted, and Mier is providing a custom
enclosure in two to three weeks. This
will be used in several hundred commercial
trucks nationwide.”
“We use Mier enclosures for air conditioning
and the outdoor fire alarm
communications systems, and have
found they are good products, cost efficient,
reliable and always in stock,”
said Edgar Blanco, owner of Gold
Coast Fire & Security, based in Ft. Myers,
Fla. “These enclosures are used in
an outdoor application; 50 percent of
what we do is outdoors.”
The company used to depend upon
several large customers for enclosure
sales, but when those companies started
sending work overseas, Mier had
to change its business plan and way of
manufacturing. Now they provide an
ever-growing standard line of products,
service a large number of OEMs and
smaller customers, provide custom enclosures
on demand, and provide valueadded
items for special orders.
One thing that hasn’t changed:
Made in the U.S.A. (Kokomo, Ind.)
Mier has also seen some of that current
overseas business coming back home.
“Quality products are very important
to us,” said Anthony Lantrip, service
manager at Cintas Corp. in Ft. Myers.
“Quality is much more important
to us than trying to save a buck. Mier
Products offer us good U.S.A. quality.
For me, made in the U.S.A. means if I
can help save/keep a job in the United
States, and if there is good quality, that’s
where we’re going to invest.”
This article originally appeared in the April 2016 issue of Security Today.