A multi-criteria generic process model for selecting fire protection system

Abstract

Fire safety engineers have been trying their best to design and install fire protection systems in various buildings since the past decades. Fire protection is needed for every building in operation, not only for fire extinguishment, but also as a means for saving life and property. Fire protection design is a complex engineering aspect which needs an integrated approach consideration by engineers with enormous experience. Nowadays, due to the lack of proper guidelines and knowledge, fire engineers are trying their best to select the most suitable fire protection system by relying on their past experience, past projects and code references. In order to help designers in assessing the impact of reliability, performance, cost and adaptability of fire protection systems, assessment tools and software are essential. Hence, the aim of this research is to develop a generic process model to assess the suitability of fire protection systems for buildings and to select the most suitable system. The model takes into account a set of standard criteria that influences the implementation of fire protection system in a building. This is achieved through three interrelated objectives: 1) to identify the relationship between various variables for active fire protection system; 2) to develop a fire protection system selection model; 3) to evaluate and validate the generic process model. Opinions and experiences are the nature of data collected by interviews with fifteen fire expert respondents consisting of fire consultants, fire engineers, fire contractors and fire suppliers based on fire protection system selection for a building. Data collected were converted into subjective ranking measureable data using Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP). A generic process model was developed using IDEF-0 that provides fire protection system selection guidelines that will help fire contractors, consultants, suppliers, engineers and clients in selecting a suitable fire protection system.