Independent fire and security specialists Allcooper have been busy making changes over the past few months, transforming their old engineers’ room into a brand new training facility at the firm’s headquarters in Gloucester.
The new facility has been introduced as part of the company’s continuous improvement programme and is fitted with working examples from the existing product range including intruder, CCTV and access control systems.
Working examples have been provided by a number of the company’s suppliers and will be used for demonstrations and training tasks such as programming, testing and maintenance. Intruder systems on display include products from HKC, Honeywell and Texecom, whilst a variety of CCTV systems from Genie, Samsung, DeView and Dallmeier are also on show. Other systems include CQR panic buttons, access control from Videx and Bell systems, as well as GJD Illuminator emergency lighting.
Allcooper currently employ over thirty installations and service engineers, seven of whom are employed as apprentices. Coupled with one day per week’s studying as part of a dedicated Security System Apprenticeship at Gloucestershire College, the introduction of the new training area has proved very popular with apprentices, who have spent time perfecting their programming skills using the variety of demo systems available for training.
Engineers and apprentices gave up their own time to equip the new facility, which they believe will bring many benefits to the company in years to come. Installations team leader Paul McAvoy said: “The new training room is something we had in mind for a while but finding the time during working hours was difficult. For engineers and apprentices to give up their own time to work on the room just demonstrates how committed they are to their jobs, and how much they value the skills they stand to gain through individual and group training.”
