How Johnson controls leverages building automation security with SMS communication.
“Buying equipment for our customers in different countries can be challenging,” says Francisco Neto, Johnson Controls’ Procurement Manager for Latin America. “We have to deal with different suppliers with different business models. In some cases, the supplier asks for payment upfront before dispatching the equipment, impacting our lead times for installation and deployment as we go through the procurement process.”?
Founded in 1885, 江森自控 International is a multinational conglomerate with headquarters in Cork, Ireland. Employing more than 105,000 people in over 2,000 locations spanning six continents, the company’s two business units design, manufacture, install, and service air conditioning, fire, heating, industrial refrigeration, security, ventilation systems, and mechanical equipment for commercial and residential buildings.?
Johnson Controls also sells many intelligent building management systems and digital solutions. They make buildings safer, more comfortable, and more efficient. And, in the end, more sustainable.?
Hundreds of companies throughout LATAM rely on Johnson Controls for high-quality solutions. Sourcing equipment to meet customer needs with fast, easy buying and deployment is essential to their business. Moreover, to simplify buying, Neto is responsible for sourcing equipment. The gear must work in many environments. Some have external dependencies outside his control.?
The Challenge: Providing facility managers with increased control and confidence?
Johnson Controls uses a suite of notification solutions. They use them to meet their customers’ demands. The company provides technologies to manage each building’s entire life cycle. These include addressable devices with smart communications. They link initiating devices, notification appliances, and the control panel. This allows quick diagnostics and quiet self-tests for individual devices or a whole system. And it does this without disturbing building occupants. Each device is monitored digitally at all times. This gives facility managers more control and confidence.?
Neto's department finds affordable, reliable components worldwide. They match these to each customer's unique needs. This process covers design, installation, and maintenance.?
But that’s not always as straightforward as it might sound.?
Ensuring 24×7 communications for essential notifications?
Johnson Controls delivers customizable, scalable, and automated safety systems. It customizes each system based on building requirements. The systems provide reliable communications for both safety alarms and malfunction alerts. But with customer installations spanning multiple countries, infrastructures, and environments, challenges arise.?
“Our systems push critical alarm notifications to both the control system and mobile phones via SMS. However, one of the other brands of SMS devices we tried out didn’t cover the frequency of the cellular operators in LATAM. We needed to find an alternative that complied with our customer’s technical specification for sending SMS alerts across the local mobile network.” (…) “We chose SMSEagle because it fulfilled all of the technical requirements requested by the customer. SMSEagle communicates with a field controller through the IP network, reliably sending critical alarms via SMS from the different customer sites.”?
Supporting different cellular frequencies for delivering critical alerts?
The radio modules support global GSM, 3G, and 4G standards. They also have full waveband coverage. They deliver fast, reliable SMS connectivity. SMSEagle bypasses the Internet. It works without third-party providers. It sends SMS messages directly to your cellular operator. SMSEagle is made to work well in many places. It offers a range of ready-to-use APIs and plugins for fast, easy integration with existing systems. These include many Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) systems.?
“The first SMSEagle has been in operation for several months without any problems,” adds Neto. “For now, SMSEagle is specific to this project, but we’ve marked it as the solution to address these technical specifications, and similar requirements should the need arise in the future.”?
Explore SMSEagle demo device
SMSEagle is a hardware & software solution that guarantees a swift delivery of your messages to designated recipients, whether it’s for notifications, alerts, or important updates.