Ayrshire College

Ayrshire College

For well over a century, the East Ayrshire town of Kilmarnock was famous as the home of the renowned Johnnie Walker whisky distillery, one of the world’s most recognisable brands of Scotch.

But when the distillery shut its doors in 2012, the site was soon snapped up for a very different kind of purpose. Following a £53 million construction and regeneration project, the brand new Ayrshire College campus opened its doors in September 2016, transforming both the skyline and educational opportunities in the old industrial town.

With 5000 full and part-time students studying subjects ranging from engineering to hair and beauty, the college is large and thriving hub of activity. As with all large campuses, coordinating and communicating with staff presents its own challenges, which is why the senior leadership team contacted Brentwood.

In particular, they wanted to establish a communication system which would enable reception staff to contact any other member of staff wherever they were on campus, to take calls or to greet visitors. In addition, they also wanted to improve the efficiency of communication with security and maintenance teams, to ensure any reported issues could be handled as quickly as possible.

Our solution

After carrying out a survey of the site, our engineers recognised that the size of the campus and the way staff moved about throughout the day were the main challenges for any communication system. The two way radio solution they devised would have to offer excellent signal coverage in all corners of the large site.

We supplied a fleet of two handheld digital radio models, the Lugra Evolve E55 and the Motorola DP4800e. The majority of staff received an Evolve E55, a lightweight and easy to carry model perfect for moving around a busy campus.

The Evolve E55 supports private calling, so was ideal for reception staff to contact individual staff members to say they had a call to take or a visitor to greet. Like most digital models, it boasts excellent reception and audio quality. It also includes the Lone Worker safety feature, helpful for monitoring maintenance staff if they were, for example, working at height alone.

We supplied the Motorola DP4800e radios for reception staff and management. With an advanced range of digital features, the DP4800e boasts superb audio quality and signal range, providing peace of mind that important messages will always get through when needed.

Amongst the special features we recommended, we programmed the DP4800e handsets with radio check, so reception staff could see if a colleague was on campus, or if they had their radio was switched on, when they needed to contact them. For security staff, we also programmed the DP4800s’s with a one-touch panic button. This could alert the rest of the team of any danger in an emergency.