HERAS - ISE 2019 Q&A

1.    You have recently had success providing fencing and barriers at Schiphol airport, can you tell us a little about the project and why you were chosen?

Our perimeter protection solutions separate the secured ‘air side’ of the airport from the ‘land side’. We ensure that the perimeter of the airport remains secure under all circumstances and that maintaining and managing the perimeter causes as little disruption as possible to the airport’s processes. Schiphol very expressly opted for quality, expertise and experience with this tender. Heras emerged as the most suitable partner thanks, in part, to the quality of the documents we provided and the fact that we underpinned our plans by outlining what we have successfully achieved for Schiphol and other clients in recent years.

2.    You have also recently launched the safest sliding gate in the UK. What makes this capability unique and where do you see its use?

The Safeglide2 complies with the strictest safety requirements, such as:

• BS EN 12453 Certification 
• Fully compliant to safety requirement of no gaps/openingss >100mm without protection by safety features like safety edges or photocells. 
• DoP Certified
• Certified for Windclass 3; at time of launch it was the only gate on the UK market to be wind-class-3 certified meaning it will work reliably, even in the most demanding of weather conditions.

All Safeglide 2 gates are supplied fully built and tested to simplify on-site installation. Once a gate is installed, as part of Heras’ on-going commitment to safety, we also offer a free of charge installation, safety and compliance check., after which a certificate of inspection will be issued 

3.    You talk of Future Proof Perimeter Protection for today and Tomorrow – what do you mean by this and how do you see it being delivered?

In addition to engineers and technicians, people with an IT background work at Heras. We combine the old world, in which Heras has a great reputation with the new world, in which we want to become a premium brand.  We want to guarantee that perimeter protection solutions always work, are safe and never interfere with business continuity. We do this through predictive maintenance. We have a real-time dashboard in which we can see all the parameters of the gate. Based on this information we can prevent breakdowns and act proactively to maintain the assets of our customers.

4.    HERAS has many products certified by the Loss Protection Prevention Board, how do you go about getting certification and how does this benefit your business?

Heras offers high security gate and fencing solutions designed for sites with critical infrastructure assets including data centres, distribution centres and power plants. Products in the Heras portfolio hold accreditations including those by LPCB to LPS 1175, and endorsements such as the Police approval platform Secured by Design. Accredited products provide proven, demonstrable protection which is recognised by insurance companies through reduced premium costs.

5.    Being a European Business with an international footprint including in the UK, how do you think BREXIT is going to affect your business if at all? 

• We have manufacturing plants in both UK and mainland Europe. Today they are centred on product type which improves efficiency. We ship products from these plants to sales locations throughout Europe and worldwide. A concern for us is that with certain forms of Brexit shipping these products will become more difficult and hence we will need to generalise our factories to provide the full range of products to all sales locations - this is less efficient and again has cost attached to it. 
• As long as the UK maintains product standards in-line with EU regulations we see no material impact on product development other than small additional costs for certifications, potentially.
• For technical bought-in products that form part of our integrated solutions we have a global supply base. Again, as long as the outcome of Brexit does not create barriers to the import of these technical products we see no issue. The same in the opposite direction -  we have third party suppliers in the UK which support our integrated solutions in mainland Europe. We need to ensure timely and cost appropriate delivery in both directions. Mitigation is to hold more stock in multiple locations so ensure security of the sites we protect however this has a cost attached to it.
• Labour is a concern albeit a lesser one. Today we actually use our UK teams to supplement our mainland European teams particularly on UK led accounts. This mixing of the teams has always proven of benefit as they learn from each other and we improve operationally.

6.    What is your key message to the ISE audience in December?

We want customers to build their own future-proof perimeter protection based upon the Heras Security Model. Visitors can experience the complete security solutions that we offer at all levels from commercial security to high security at our stand, where these solutions will be fully integrated, working and interactive. The stand will exhibit the best implementation of our Demarcation, Entrance Control and Detection solutions. 

Heras has built an unrivalled reputation for exceptional perimeter protection from commercial applications to the very highest levels of state security.