project profile

Size: 850,000 Square Feet
Project Cost: $220,000
Completion Date: 2013

Project Scope:
Existing Facility Fire Alarm Utility Inventory and Drawings/p>

The Milwaukee VA Medical Center undertook the implementation of a building utility inventory and assessment for the 10 story hospital starting in 2005. The purpose of these projects were to document the various mechanical and electrical services within the hospital to meet regulatory compliance.

The fourth phase of this multi-utility assessment involved documentation and creation of a database and as built drawings of the fire alarm system. IBC worked with the VA to gather all known existing fire alarm drawings from the original 1964 construction through all renovations completed at the time of this project. A compiled AutoCAD set of as built drawings were prepared from the hard copy as built drawings. A system riser diagram was also created to show an overall diagram of the fire alarm system for the hospital.

The second major component to this project was the tagging of the fire alarm appliances and panels on the drawings and the creation of a database that included the fire alarm system information such as type of appliance, location, etc. IBC worked with the VA to develop a naming convention based on appliance type, floor/wing location, and panel served from.

The tags in the AutoCAD drawings were then linked to a database with additional information about the fire alarm appliance, including a field for a unique bar code identifier for a future inventory labeling project. The database link allowed the VA to update either the drawing or the database which in turn update the remaining linked drawing or database. This process assured the VA that both the drawings and the database would be populated simultaneously with any updated data.