KAC Celebrates 40 Years of UK Design and Manufacturing

KAC Alarm Company, the world’s largest manufacturer of call points and audible visible warning devices used in fire systems and other industrial applications, is celebrating its fortieth anniversary at its UK manufacturing base in Redditch. Amongst the celebrations to mark the event are a factory open day for 170 staff and their families. Since it was founded in 1972, KAC has manufactured an estimated 30 million call points. The company was responsible for developing an innovative new product design that quickly replaced the original, “break glass” devices in use at the time. So successful was the concept that it was rapidly adopted as the de facto industry standard used by all manufacturers. KAC Site Leader Russull McNamara said, “Our fortieth anniversary is a great advertisement for UK manufacturing. We have been based in the Midlands for 40 years; during that time we have expanded from a one man start-up operation to a worldwide business which has the backing of Honeywell, a global manufacturing and technology leader. Our products are used all over the world in high profile buildings, commercial offices and specialist environments such as the marine industry and hazardous areas, providing protection for people, property and assets. We invested £2m in a modern manufacturing plant at Thornhill Road in Redditch in 2008 and continue to advance the technologies we use to manufacture our products.” The technology of manual call points has advanced along with the rest of the fire industry. In addition to conventional units, intelligent versions interface with the control panel. Key operated and push button devices are available, as are environmentally sealed, intrinsically safe variants and IP66 and IP67 environmentally sealed units. Call points are widely used in a variety of applications. The familiar red body is for fire systems; orange for smoke vent control, green for emergency door release, escalator emergency stop and similar uses, blue for security systems and yellow for extinguishing system activation or general evacuation signalling.