State Bank of India (SBI) is an Indian multinational public sector bank and financial services statutory body headquartered in UP. SBI is the 43rd largest bank in the world and ranked 221st in the Fortune Global 500 list of the world’s biggest corporations of 2020, being the only Indian bank on the list. It is a public sector bank and the largest bank in India with a 23% market share by assets and a 25% share of the total loan and deposits market. It is also the fifth largest employer in India with nearly 250,000 employees.
In addition to be compliant, SBI strongly emphasizes on safety and security issues. The Bank aimed to ensure that everyone concerned with the staff to the visitors understand the requirements of fire safety in order to ensure optimum safety for all who are present in the building. They aimed to focus on life and property safety. SBI wanted a solution that could match its required standards. They wanted to opt for a future ready addressable system that could pin point the exact location of fire. The installation must not involve any changes to the newly constructed building’s architecture.
SBI is a newly constructed multi-storey building, so lengthy wiring would lead to civil work. The bank consists of many rooms, precious assets and most importantly, visitors and staff. It was clear that SBI needed completely wireless devices. The building layout, the vaults, the electrical faults, unfamiliarity or negligence can raise fire. Also, some areas of the bank are locked for safety purpose, the fire could be trapped inside creating it difficult to vacate the place. Even in case of power cuts, terror attacks or any other emergencies, quick and planned evacuation is extremely important. One of the key requirements of SBI was to have early detection so the key stakeholders can contribute to life and property safety. Major design considerations for SBI were safety, technical leverage, highly reliable system that could last longer with low maintenance and installation cost.
The site survey was conducted by NFire Team. SBI believes that the site survey was the most valuable part of this project as it gave them confidence on the recommendation of NFire by the consultant. Working with NFire Team on the site survey put into perspective that this process should be every institution’s standard. They believe that NFire Team highlighted the risks/threats and assured NFire’s seamless functioning. A total of 13 smoke sensors were added that pinpoints the exact location of fire. NFire is a customizable solution with easy installation and minimal downtime. It causes no damage to the existing structure and saves a major cost compared to any conventional or wired addressable systems. NFire solution also brings other unique features like 24×7 monitoring, advance integration with IoT, Cloud computing, Mobile technology and communication technology. It is an easily upgradable future proof technology system for next generation smart fire stations. NFire feasibly reduces operational complexity and increases the incident response speed. It is highly stable, robust and built as per UL/BIS/NFPA specifications. Along with the live emergency monitoring service, notifications are sent via live call and SMS by NFire team of highly trained monitoring officers. NFire connect app makes it easy to access NFire alarm system from anywhere.
NFire has proved to be an ideal solution for SBI. SBI precisely experienced half of the total civil cost for safeguarding their premises and their people. There was no lengthy wiring or masonry work which saved a lot of cost with fast installation. Live monitoring with pin point location of fire through an app is provided to the institution as demanded. The system is cloud integrated, IoT operational and AI enabled with integrated communications. NFire Solution ultimately ensures that the building was safe and operational. Moreover, SBI was able to achieve higher Returns of Investment (ROI) while experiencing minimal Total Cost of Investment (TCO) with the help of NFire Solution.
