SIA New Member Profile: Hochiki

Hochiki office

New Security Industry Association (SIA) member Hochiki America Corporation is a supplier of quality smoke detectors to the fire alarm industry. Hochiki America is headquartered in Buena Park, California, with a sales, training and distribution center in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania; regional sales managers located across the United States; and physical locations in Mexico and Columbia.

SIA spoke with Tom Dennis, director of sales at Hochiki, about the company’s history and offerings, the security industry and working with SIA.

Tell us the story of your company.

Tom Dennis: Hochiki Corp. was founded in 1918. The name Hochiki means Alarming, Knowing, Equipment. Hochiki designed and installed the first manual call boxes in Japan. Hochiki America was founded in Southern California in 1972. Primarily an original equipment manufacturer (OEM), we have been an OEM supplier to most, if not all fire alarm manufacturers at one point or another. In fact, Hochiki invented the addressable fire alarm technology which is in use worldwide today.

In 2001, Hochiki America made the choice to expand our OEM business into what is today a full system supplier. To my knowledge, we are the last remaining sensor manufacturer in the United States. In 2022, as we celebrate our 50th anniversary, Hochiki America still maintains a robust OEM business. However, we also sell complete systems throughout the UL markets in the U.S. and Central and South America, as well as the Middle East. We also manufacture products (of all regulatory standards) for our group companies located throughout the world.

What solutions/services does your business offer in the security industry? And what makes your offerings/company unique?

TD: Hochiki’s greatest strength is our quality. I am not suggesting that we don’t have a full line of fire alarm systems for a multitude of applications, because we do; however, in our product line you will find a competitively priced line of products whose quality soars above anything else in the market today. For example, we have never had a smoke sensor delivered to a customer that was returned defective. Never. Our failure rate is .0001. That is one unit per 10,000. However, due to our robust quality assurance, none of these has ever made it to a customer.

What is something we might not know about your company – or something new you are doing in security?

TD: I would say that the No. 1 thing that potential customers of Hochiki would like to know about us is that we have product available to ship. We have panels, sensors, modules and pull stations. Being a global company, we have done better than our competitors in navigating the global supply chain issues.

What does SIA offer that is most important to you and your company? And what do you most hope to get out of membership?

TD: Hochiki America is most looking forward to working with SIA and SIA members to promote life safety in the U.S. and abroad. A network of SIA members sharing ideas and making the world a safer place in a noncompetitive environment.

The views and opinions expressed in guest posts and/or profiles are those of the authors or sources and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Security Industry Association.