Fire and Safety Discussions: Compliance and Regulations

In this series of articles, we’ll break down every panel discussion at the Fire Middle East Conference 2024! Here are some compliance highlights and moments that made the event such a ground-breaking success. 

The Fire Middle East Conference opened its doors to over 200 C-suite decision-makers from across the Fire and Safety industries. This audience then participated and interacted with various panel discussions. These thought leaders sat down on stage and answered pressing questions, aimed to challenge them and produce key insights about the state of the industry, the coming Saudi Vision 2030 initiative and the new wave of innovative technologies.

The second-panel discussion of the day was moderated by Sandy Dweik, after taking the stage to talk about Codes, Compliance and Accreditation.  She was joined by:

– Ghaith Bakir, Senior Regulatory Engineer MEA, UL Solutions
-Eng. Abdulaziz Al Sulayyim, Head of HSSE, Academy of Defense Industries
-David Campbell, General Manager, Emirates Safety Laboratory (ESL)

The panel focused on discussing the importance of implementing the correct international codes and certifications in diverse regions.

Sandy asked: “When you renew a permit, you hire a company to check all of your systems. Do you think we should inspect fire-rated assemblies? To prevent misuse? Similar to what we do for active systems?”

Ghaith explained the importance of checking that products are compliant, noting that products need to be safety assured which requires rigorous checks.

He said: “We have to ensure there is a check on the product, there must be additional steps where we verify the product itself. To ensure these products are evaluated and tested by the approved certification body. What we can do depends on the documentation itself. We must make sure these products are really certified. Verifying these products with the certification body.”

David Campbell added: “Yes, all fire-safety products should be put through a verification process.”

The panel explored how the code verification process should be carried out and where it has the potential to go wrong.

David Campbell explained: “Throughout the Middle East, there are examples of products being installed by people who don’t understand the proper way to install them. They have just installed them in a generic way they believe suits the application.”

The three speakers then rounded off the discussion with hope for the future as Abdulaziz Alsulayyim said: “The main challenge here is overcoming the lack of general knowledge of fire life safety.
“We need to integrate fire life safety curriculum through schools or through corporate training facilities. We could even use a media campaign.’

Want to have an in-depth look at the day’s events? Catch the full 2024 gallery by clicking here.