Fire alarm firm cuts emergency calls in half with app, eyes AI-driven prevention

There was a time when a fire safety company had to dispatch a technician to the scene every time a fire alarm malfunctioned. Prime ENC, a fire safety management firm, developed a smart fire management system that lets on-site managers resolve false alarms through a mobile app — no technician required. The company has since expanded into specialized safety fields including nuclear power plants and road tunnels.

"Through the app, site managers can share photos of the scene and the recommended response, so they can handle it themselves," CEO Kim Hoe-taek said at a press briefing at the company's Gangseo-gu office on Thursday. "I wanted someone to build a program like this so we could just use it, but the fire safety industry is too small-scale for anyone to develop one. So I ended up building it myself over seven years."

According to data provided by the company, of the approximately 2,755,057 fire-safety-regulated facilities nationwide, only 203,272 — about 7.3 percent — are managed by specialized contractors. The remaining 92.7 percent are handled by building owners or other non-specialists. "The company was founded on the recognition that most fire safety facilities are left in the hands of non-professionals," said Park Gil-jong, a director at Prime ENC.

The biggest risk in non-professionally managed buildings is a safety gap. When fire alarms repeatedly trigger falsely — set off by restaurant smoke, cigarette smoke, moisture or aging detectors — managers sometimes switch off the control panel or lock the fire pump, the company said. "Once it's turned off, it can stay that way for five or ten years," Kim said. "Then when a real fire breaks out, the building is completely defenseless."

Prime ENC began developing its own fire safety IT system in 2010 and completed a mobile-based smart fire management system in 2017. The system logs inspection results and facility history as data and shares them in real time with building owners and managers. "Annual emergency dispatches dropped by about half, from 1,500 to 750," Park said.

The mobile system became a genuine growth engine during the COVID-19 pandemic. With the system already in place, demand for contactless management surged and the company's client base roughly tripled. "We had prepared in advance, and then the opportunity came," Kim said. "The smart safety management system was the first turning point in the company's growth."

Prime ENC currently manages about 2,000 buildings nationwide, including 1,200 in Seoul. Sales stood at 5 billion won ($3.59 million) in 2017 and grew to 20.12 billion won last year, while the workforce expanded from 68 to 195 employees over the same period.

The company was founded in 2005 as Prime Bangje but changed its name last month, reflecting its expansion beyond fire facility maintenance into specialized safety fields such as nuclear power plants, road tunnels and jet fans. Those specialized safety segments now account for about 60 percent of total sales.

The company's digital push has extended to jet fan safety management inside tunnels. Jet fans ventilate exhaust fumes during normal operations and control smoke and heat during fires. Prime ENC accumulated data through performance verification and precision inspections of jet fans at more than 400 tunnels nationwide, then used that data to develop a mobile diagnostic system.

The mobile diagnostic system digitizes the entire process — from measurement to performance evaluation to report writing. Jet fans are installed on tunnel ceilings, making inspections difficult, and prolonged use can corrode the casing mounts, creating a risk of the units falling. To reduce that risk, the company developed a block-type jet fan casing and filed a patent.

The next step is AI. Prime ENC is developing an integrated maintenance system that consolidates data from fire safety, electrical, elevator, jet fan and automatic control systems. The system will predict the likelihood of equipment anomalies and flag optimal replacement timing before problems arise, shifting from a reactive model — dispatching technicians after a breakdown — to a proactive one.

"For example, the system would tell you that a pump might develop a problem in about three years, or when a bearing needs to be replaced," Kim said. "Building owners would be able to budget for it in advance rather than facing sudden unexpected costs."

Kim's target is to reach sales of 40 billion to 50 billion won within the next five years. Securing skilled personnel remains a challenge. "The biggest concern lately is the sharp rise in turnover among technicians with one or two years of experience," he said. "Some small operators are shutting down because they simply cannot find workers."