FS SYSTEMS: Cutting-Edge Solutions to Protect People, Property and Assets

In 1965, Duane Pearsall and Stanley Peterson developed the world’s first battery-operated smoke detector in the USA, prompting, just four years later, South Africans Margaret and Robert Macfarlane to establish Fire Fight, a company catering to South Africa’s great need of the installation and integration of fire and life safety devices in Observatory, Cape Town. A hectic two years on the founders opted to concentrate on manufacturing their own such products, seeing the company split into the dual forces of Ziton and Lintek.

The absence of legislation to support fire detection in SA in the 1970s made for many challenges, but equally an abundance of innovations and helped Lintek to become one of only a handful of specialists in the Western Cape. In the 1980s, Lintek became FireSpec, staying faithful to its roots in the fire market while expanding into other areas of enterprise security including access control, surveillance, voice evacuation and physical security information management (PSIM).

In the 2010s, FireSpec was again rebranded, this time to the FS Systems of today, and with the change of moniker came its first international projects for the mining and gaming industries in Latin America and Africa. Today, the FS Group consists of four companies with more than eighty employees on its team, consummately executing projects in more than nine countries in Africa and Latin America.

FS CONNECT

FS Group’s head office remains in Cape Town, but its reach has swelled via expansion outside of its home territory through FS International, dealing with Africa and Latin America, and FS Ghana, which caters to West Africa. “Our newest addition – our new baby, meanwhile” Cathrine Herwill, Marketing & Sales Enablement Manager, smiles, “is FS Connect, a division also based in Johannesburg and geared firmly toward 4IR and cloud-based technologies and systems.”

Managing Director of FS Connect, Thabo Wessie elaborates: “Economic growth will ride in the cockpit of technology, and as FS Connect we are at the centre of making sure we use this technology to drive business efficiencies, protect and unleash performance of business assets. Things are moving quickly, and we are looking forward to making this technology available to the market.”

Despite the tumultuous conditions which immediately followed its launch in March last year, Herwill reports that initial dealings have been great cause for positivity. “It managed to navigate and overcome opening its doors just before the various lockdowns,” she says, “and is going extremely strong.”

50 YEAR CELEBRATIONS

Moves like this perfectly encapsulate one of the central pillars of FS Systems’s success, Carlo Klopper abridges. “FS Systems has stayed true to its roots in the fire detection and enterprise security market, while making sure that we continuously grow and stay up to date with the latest technology.” This year holds special significance, as it sees FS Group notch up half a century of continually innovating and burgeoning to refine its ability to protect people and assets, especially harnessing technology to achieve this.

“It is a huge milestone for us,” agrees Herwill. “Our story began in 1971 as a tiny business operating out of a little house, focussing on fire protection and suppression systems. While a large portion of our business is still defined as life safety, our reach has expanded now to encompass integration with video surveillance and access control, to build entire integrated systems.”

These 50 years of operation equate to more than a century of combined security industry management, and have brought with them a variety of global partnerships with industry leading technology suppliers and important official accreditations. “We employ highly qualified specialists who regularly undergo training in their relevant fields,” FS Systems further underlines. “We have a dedicated budget set aside for training to ensure that our technical teams are certified.”

FS Systems offers the latest product sets in six key areas: HD video surveillance, Fire protection and life safety, Enterprise access control systems, integrated security management, systems, predictive maintenance and 4IR, Internet of Things (IoT) and Cloud Solutions.

“A lot of the focus has been on the employees, celebrating them internally,” Herwill says of marking this remarkable landmark. “We have a lot of longstanding employees, many of whom have been with us for in excess of 15 years and have walked a long journey with the company. A huge part of our success is directly thanks to them and we wanted to celebrate their stories and favourite moments with FS Systems.”

Having celebrated its first five decades, thoughts now turn to the next five, and future considerations are a top priority for the company. “We are constantly evaluating new products so that our clients are always up-to-date with the latest features, upgrades and technology available.

“We remain future-focused and will continue to provide an end-to-end solution for our customers.”

PRAGMATIC POSITIVITY

Increasingly, as we see the gradual return to a semblance of normality in operations, we are finding that businesses are dealing with the pandemic’s impact in one of two ways: either it has caused widespread despair and unassailable turmoil or, as is evidently the case with FS Systems, it has in fact been an invaluable opportunity to reshape and rethink, with many positives to grab among the upheaval.

“Each of our companies has crafted its own niche or area of expertise within the security, fire and life safety space, with its own unique product solutions,” Herwill closes. “Digitisation of all our processes is going to be a real strategic priority moving forward,” she notes, “making everything accessible and workable online.

“We strive to be the leading technology provider for life safety and electronic security solutions in Africa,” FS Systems summates. “By becoming experts in our field,” concludes Carlo Klopper, “we have been able to bring global trends and technologies to the African market for the last fifty years. We look forward to proudly protecting people and assets for the next 50 years to come.”