WestPoint · Systems engineering
Before buying a single piece of equipment you have to decide what is protected, from what, who receives the alert and what happens when the power goes. That part is not invoiced by units, it does not appear in the quotation, and it is what decides whether the installation is still useful in five years.
And the difference shows up late, which is exactly what makes it expensive.
Almost everyone who calls us has already received the same document: two sides of paper, a list of materials with quantities, a price at the end and a page of client logos. That paper does not say where each camera goes, or why there, or what can be seen from there at eleven at night. It says what the material costs plus a margin.
With that paper it gets signed just the same, installed just the same and switched on just the same. On commissioning day everything works: the images arrive, the doors open, the alarm sounds when it is tested. Nobody finds out there is a gap, because a gap does not throw an error.
They find out two years later, when somebody's face has to be pulled out of the recording and it turns out that camera was never good enough for that. Or when the alarm really goes off and the alert went to an inbox nobody reads any more. At that point the conversation stops being technical and becomes about whose fault it was, and there is no way to fix it without opening the walls again.
A drawing with camera icons is not a project. The project is the decisions behind each icon.
The first is not technical: what has to be protected and from what. Protecting a warehouse from theft at night is not the same as protecting a plant from someone walking into an area where they could lose a hand. Wanting to know that something happened is not the same as wanting to be able to prove it in court or to an insurer. Each of those answers leads to a different system, and when nobody asks the question, the system you get is whichever one the catalogue had nearest to hand.
The second is what is expected of each point. A camera can serve three very different purposes: seeing that somebody is there, recognising a person you already know, or identifying a stranger. All three need a different amount of detail on the same face, and therefore a different lens, a different distance and a different height. Asking the third of a camera mounted for the first is not an adjustment: it is a different camera in a different place.
And the third is what happens when something fails, because something is going to fail. The power goes, the network drops, a drive breaks, somebody cuts a cable on purpose. A project says what carries on working in each of those cases and what does not, and that is decided with the client in the room, not improvised on installation day.
Always the same, and the visit comes first. Designing from a drawing and a list of requirements dictated over the phone is guesswork in neat handwriting.
None of the four has a line in the quotation. All four decide whether the installation holds up.
Three and a half metres is out of reach of a stick and within reach of the maintenance man's ladder. Any higher and the camera looks at the tops of heads and stops recognising faces. Any lower and the first argument in the car park ends with it turned round. It is a number decided once, in the project, and argued out then.
A security system that goes off with the lights protects you during office hours. What gets decided here is what the backup carries and for how long: whether only the alarm, whether the recording too, whether the doors too. Each answer costs differently, and it has to be chosen rather than inherited from whatever came in the box.
Putting two hundred cameras on the same network the company works on is free on day one. Later, the day somebody gets in through a camera, they have got into everything. Separating the two is a project decision and is taken before the first cable goes in, not once they are all in.
It is the decision that disables the most systems. An alarm that goes to a generic mailbox, to the mobile of someone who no longer works here, or to a centre with no instructions on what to do is an alarm that does not exist. You have to write down who, in what order and what each of them does, and look at it again when the people change.
You should demand this of anyone, us included. What does not get handed over turns your installation into your supplier's installation.
You do not need to understand security. You need five questions, and they can be put to any supplier before signing. To us as well.
We do not design over a drawing without going to the site. It can be done, it is done a lot and it comes out cheaper; it is also the most reliable way to find out on installation day that the camera on the drawing is looking at a column.
We do not size downwards to fit a price. If what has to be protected needs twelve points and the budget covers eight, the honest thing is to say what is left uncovered and let the client decide. The alternative —spreading eight cameras over twelve places— gets handed over just as neatly, and what it hands over is a feeling.
We do not sign off a project we will not be able to document afterwards. A system that works but cannot be justified to an inspection or to an insurer is worth half of what it was bought for, and that is discovered on the day the paperwork is needed.
And we are not the cheapest, and we are not going to be. Half of what we charge is this part, the part with no units. Anyone comparing on price per camera will find us expensive, and within their comparison they are right.
The project decides them all at once, including the network and the hardware underneath. Each then has its own decisions, and here they are.
The ones that come up most. There are 28 on this subject, and the other 22 are in the question index.
All the questions, by subjectA quotation says what the material costs; a project says what has to be protected, from what, where each element goes and why there. The document almost everyone who calls us has received before is two sides of paper: a list of materials with quantities, a price at the end and a page of logos. From that paper you cannot know what is visible from that camera at eleven at night, or who receives the alert at four in the morning, or what carries on working when the power goes.
The difference does not show on commissioning day, and that is what makes it expensive. Everything works: the images arrive, the doors open, the alarm sounds when it is tested. A gap does not throw an error. It shows two years later, when somebody's face has to be pulled out of a recording and it turns out that camera was never good enough for that.
You recognise a project by the fact that it can be argued over before anything is bought. If a document does not let you disagree with a specific decision —this height, this field of view, this backup time—, then there are no decisions inside it.
How it is designed before anything is bought Why we would rather say no
It depends which installation it is and on which works. In fire protection, RIPCI (Royal Decree 513/2017, the Spanish regulation on fire protection installations) requires the installation to be backed by a project or by technical documentation signed by a competent technician, and to be carried out by a licensed installer; the scope of that document changes depending on whether the works fall under the Building Code, under the industrial premises regulation, or are a standalone installation in an existing building. In new build, fire protection also sits inside the building project.
In electronic security —cameras, access, intruder detection— there is not always a formal obligation to have a project, and that is why so much gets signed on two sides of paper. The obligations arrive from elsewhere: whoever installs a system connected to an alarm receiving centre has to be a security company entered in the relevant register, and the handling of the images has obligations of its own. These are checkable facts and it is worth asking for them before signing, of anyone.
Our position does not depend on whether the law asks for it in that particular case: we do not sign off an installation we will not be able to document afterwards. A system that works but cannot be justified to an inspection or to an insurer is worth half of what it was bought for, and that is discovered on the day the paperwork is needed.
What RIPCI requires in fire detection The paperwork you are entitled to ask for What a security project contains
It is the first conversation and it is not technical: what has to be protected, from what, and what happens if it fails. Protecting a warehouse from theft at night is not the same as protecting a plant from someone walking into an area where they could lose a hand. Wanting to find out that something happened is not the same as needing to prove it in court or to an insurer. Each of those answers leads to a different system.
The client decides it, and that is not a polite formula. We bring the questions, the experience of where people actually get in and the consequences of each option; the priority between what gets protected first and what is accepted as a risk taken on is a business decision, and it is signed by whoever answers for the business.
What is ours is making sure that decision is written down. A risk analysis that lives in two people's heads is lost the first time the person in charge changes, and then nobody knows why the loading bay camera is where it is or why the warehouse was left out.
On what basis it is decided what gets protected What we argue for when the client decides
You say what is left uncovered and the client decides. If what has to be protected needs twelve points and the money covers eight, the honest thing is to point out the four missing ones, what happens if someone gets in there and in what order they should be added. The alternative —spreading eight cameras over twelve places so the drawing looks full— gets handed over just as neatly, and what it hands over is a feeling.
There is almost always a way to split it into phases that does not ruin the result: leave the containment, the power and the electronics ready for what is coming and buy the equipment later. That costs little during the works and a great deal when ceilings have to be opened again.
And there is one line where we do not do that, which is fire. Fitting fewer detectors than the project says, leaving the warehouse at the back for later or handing over without testing the whole installation transfers the risk to the client without the client knowing, with our signature underneath. We would rather lose the job entirely, and we have lost it.
Why we would rather lose the job Where there is no room to trim on fire
Walking the whole site with the person who is going to design it, not with a salesperson. You look at where the sun falls at eight in the morning and where at six in the evening, what moves in the wind, what a lorry blocks when it parks, where people actually get in when nobody is looking, where the power comes from and where a cable can run without chasing out half a wall. And you look at what is already installed, in what condition and with what documentation.
It takes as long as the site takes. An industrial unit with two entrances can be seen in a morning; a building in use, with several storeys, different shifts and installations from three different eras, cannot. What is not done is designing from a drawing and a list of requirements dictated over the phone: it is the most reliable way to find out on installation day that the camera on the drawing is looking at a column.
The visit also produces a list of questions, not just measurements. Who opens up in the morning, who is the last to leave, what happens when the bin lorry comes, who has a key to the plant room. Half of what you need to know is there, and none of it is visible on a wall.
Request a technical site visit What gets looked at before designing
Two things have to be separated. The survey visit —seeing the installation, understanding what you want and being able to say whether this is something we do or whether what you need is something else— is part of giving a price and is not charged separately. The project is another matter: it is engineering work, it takes days and it is invoiced as what it is.
Giving the project away has a known consequence, and it is the one that has filled this sector with two-page documents: if it is not charged for, it is charged inside the material, and then the project gets done to the extent that it helps sell material. Half of what a well-built installation costs is this part, the part with no units.
How the project fee is treated if we then carry out the work is agreed in writing before starting. And if the client decides to take it to another company, they take it: they paid for it, it is theirs, with its drawings and its calculations.
Arrange the survey visit What you are paying for when you pay for a project
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Knowing what the installation is, what it has to be protected from, what is already in place and to what deadlines, we can tell you in the first conversation whether this is something we do or whether what you need is something else. The second happens, and it gets said then and not three meetings later.
