Danone produces dairy products with the principle of working 24/7 and 365 days a year, with its more than 300 employees at a indoor area of 27.000 square meters in its Kırklareli factory, which has developed and grown rapidly upon the acquisition of Tikveşli company in 1998. New arrangements and renovations continue to be carried out at the facility, which grows and expands in parts as the needs change. EEC Integrated Building Control Systems have installed Danone's fire detection and alarm systems, and and integrated them with the access control system.
The most important thing for us in connection with a fire detection project is that we employ a company that will meet all our needs from beginning to end and will install and deliver the systems as planned, and that the devices do not fail frequently or do not give false alarms during operation. Therefore, our biggest expectation is that we have a "well-working system" that it is designed according to the needs of every area.
We can say that we have never had any problems in connection with the projects we have realized with EEC. This indicates that EEC has resolved the doubts in our minds in the best way possible. Thanks to the absence of false alarms, we do not lose time in production processes and the reliability of the system is not prejudiced.
Since food facilities such as Danone operate in a very dynamic structure, we have implemented many revision projects with EEC. For example, we are able to turn a room into a warehouse. As in every living facility, we have demands such as moving the detectors, making additions or changing their types, as the needs change in our facility and as different areas move to different uses. We got fast and healthy results from these conversion projects, which are more challenging than starting a project from scratch. These have been valuable experiences for us.
We are very pleased with the quality, sensitivity and absence of false alarms of our fire detection system. Since the system operates correctly, we know that our facility is protected against great dangers such as fire and it is important for us that the devices have a long life. We trust the system and its performance. It has a useful feature of showing the locations where alarms are generated.
Another good work we did with EEC was to ensure that fire alarms land on our phones on a point-by-point basis. It establishes communicatation between the fire detection system and the card pass system installed at the entrance to the factory, and depending on the zone where a fire alarm came from, the location of the fire and the most accurate escape directions are sent as a message to the mobile phones of the people inside. In this way, emergency evacuations are performed in a healthier manner. This is one of the most valuable improvements we have made to our system.
There is no end to improvement, we think so. Nothing is too perfect to be improved. That's why it's possible to take every system towards the most perfect shape by making improvements all the time. As part of the project we are currently working on, we aim to differentiate the announcements of our sound system based on incoming alarms. We will customize the announcements of the warnings coming from earthquake sensors, gas sensors, or fire detection system. In addition, we are working on automating the local de-energization of a location where the fire is detected in several areas. We are constantly in pursuit of some improvements and we continue our projects.
In terms of service, EEC's service speed and quality are very valuable. It is our first priority to take quick action to solve our problems and not be at risk due to faulty detectors.
It is also very valuable to be able to intervene in a fire event at the very beginning. The last time we had noticed a fire in our laboratory before it started. A device malfunctioned and the gas inside exploded and ignited. When the fire detection system generated an alarm, we quickly went in that direction and intervened. We prevented the losses before the incident escalated and the area was damaged. Minor incidents like this occur in all industrial plants. If you don't detect and intervene when they are minor in scale, the consequences can be devastating.
We consider EEC as a solution partner that meets our needs. We highly recommend EEC as it understands us in our improvement efforts depending on the customer's special requests, such as automatic power cut-off, and completes these works quickly. We had so many problems with a fire detection system of a different company that was installed a few years ago that we have a project to completely convert such system into an EEC sysem in the future. This is already the most important indicator of our satisfaction and how much more benefit it provides to us when we compare it with its peers.
In EDWARDS we find the most important features that a fire detection system should have, namely the quality, performance and sensitivity of the products, so we recommend it to everyone. We can say that the quality is exactly at the point we want, and we can give 10 out of 10 because we have not had any problems. There may be products that we prefer just because of their prices, but we always prefer quality in critical systems such as fire detection. In terms of price / quality performance, the products may be a bit more expensive than their peers, but when we evaluate the efficiency we get, the balance between the two is maintained. It is also very important that they have product options with features that meet our different needs.
So far, all work has been completed within the timeframes specified. Maintenance flexibility is also very important to us. We expect our supplier to be able to adapt to the issues that limit us as a food facility. We work with EEC on December 31st and on Sundays, so we appreciate the flexibility.
We collaborate with the sales team when making a new purchase or making improvements to an existing system. It is extremely valuable to us that they have a good command of the subject, correctly understand our requirements, design the right projects, and offer the right products. In this regard, we have the greatest advantage.
It is also very important that EEC's technical service coordinates with our own technical team, which has automation knowledge, controls and intervenes in these systems. They can easily reach each other and work in harmony. Sometimes there are even points that they quickly resolve among themselves over the phone. Continuity is something that we value greatly. Since the same person comes to the service regularly, he now knows the factory almost as well as we do. This is one of the most important factors determining the quality of service we receive, and it is extremely convenient. This is what we demand of our suppliers.
Our first priority is occupational safety from the moment you walk into Danone. Our priority is always to protect our employees and visitors; preventing financial losses comes second. On the other hand, it is obviously critical to ensure the facility's safety and to protect the production equipment inside from fire or any other risk. This is our perspective on our fire detection system.
