CSAA Expands Five Diamond Program

By Heather Klotz, Associate Editor

      Five years after launching the Five Diamond Program, which allowed central stations across the country to receive Five Diamond Central Station Certification, the Central Station Alarm Association (CSAA), introduced the Five Diamond Alarm System Certification program.
      The program, which allows Five Diamond certified central stations to issue Five Diamond Alarm System certificates to any premise that has been determined to meet the certificate's qualifications, was designed to offer the general public and consumers, Authorities Having Jurisdictions (AHJs), responding authorities and insurance carriers an assurance of good practice and efficacy in alarm systems.
      "This program gives owners, insurance companies, AHJs, and the general public the ability to know if alarm systems are put in correctly, monitored correctly and done according to all the procedures and standards that can apply," said Stephen Doyle, executive vice president, CSSA.           
      The CSAA believes this certificate will take all the current standards, which individually may address limited elements or pieces of an alarm system, and combine them with all the industry's best practices to create a seamless umbrella signifying quality service, operation and equipment. User operations and instructions, false alarm abatement methodology, communications monitoring channel testing, routine inspections, and systems commissioning are all criteria covered by the program. 
      According to Ralph Sevinor, president, Wayne Alarm Systems Inc, Lynn, Mass., and chairman of the Five Diamond project, the program is intended to accomplish three things. "First, the program is intended to be a differentiator of true quality," Sevinor said. "There is a difference between saying quality and having quality. Secondly, the program is raising the bar in a definitive manner utilizing best practices and industry standards, and thirdly, the program globally addresses false alarms."
      Doyle pointed out that raising the bar is critical for the continued success of the industry. "No industry has ever survived by lowering its standards," he said. "The industries that survive and grow and thrive do it by raising their standards over time."            
      Information on the program can be found at www.csaaul.org/FiveDiamondsCentralStations.htm.