Access control for over 30 million visitors

CEM Systems, an access control brand of Tyco International, has announced that the new £76 million Barton Square shopping complex has chosen its AC2000 SE (Standard Edition) access control system to provide security for its 200,000 square meters of shopping space. 

With the expectation of over 30 million visitors a year, Barton Square required a flexible security management system to secure areas such as the communications rooms, access gates, and back of house areas.

“CEM AC2000 SE offers the client a flexible and fully integrated IP solution that allows the client to use existing ID cards at the Trafford Centre,” said Alan Inkster, Managing Director of installer Advance Integrated Systems, UK.  “AC2000 SE, using CEM’s S600e IP card readers, takes advantage of the Trafford Centre’s existing fibre-based IP infrastructure to form part of an overall building management system.”

The CEM S600e IP card reader provides the backbone to the AC2000 SE access system installed at Barton Square. The S600e reader has a keypad, LCD graphical display screen, and on-board Ethernet connectivity to provide intelligence at the door and connect directly to the AC2000 SE server over Ethernet. The reader also features a large internal database that uniquely reassures clients that, even if offline, the S600e will continue to provide card validation at secured doors.  

“AC2000 SE provides Barton Square with many feature-rich software modules,” said Andrew Fulton, Business Development Director for CEM products. “The AC2000 Alarm Event Display (AED) module provides the client with a graphical representation of alarms and events, while the optional AC2000 Visual Imaging and Pass Production System (VIPPS) enables them to professionally design and print colour ID passes/permits for staff and contractors.”  More

CIGNA replaces internal firewalls and VLANs
Health benefits organisation CIGNA is replacing its traditional internal computer network firewalls and VLANs with Apani EpiForce, to isolate and protect data and access for its servers within the corporate network. EpiForce will help protect these machines without requiring the network to be reconfigured or changing the way employees perform their daily activities.

The new system eliminates much of the costs associated with securing the corporate network, while introducing a high level of flexibility and efficiency to security administrators and delivers cross-platform server isolation through logical security zoning and policy-based encryption of data in motion.

According to Craig Shumard, chief information security officer at CIGNA, "It was critical for us to find a solution that didn't impact the infrastructure and tools we already have in place. EpiForce meets these requirements and enables us to maximise flexibility in isolating and protecting servers within our corporate network and eliminate complexity by managing it from a central location."  More
 

Chelsea apartments benefit from fire protection

A new development of luxury apartments is benefiting from an advanced fire detection solution from Wagner UK. The original building at 21 Manresa Road was completed in 1895 and started life as the South-West London Polytechnic, becoming the Chelsea School of Art in the 1930’s. The building became part of the Chelsea campus of King’s College in 1985, before being recently acquired for the new residential development. The finished development combines the original nineteenth century facade with a new modern structure at the rear.

Five Titanus Micro·Sens addressable air sampling smoke detection units were installed by Titan Fire & Security in a number of the apartments. The addressability of the system allows each apartment to be individually monitored and identified as the source of a fire alarm in the event of an incident. Each unit can monitor up to five different rooms or areas.

Wagner’s discreet sampling points were fitted throughout the building to ensure that the all sampling pipes were hidden from view. The impact on the interior aesthetics was therefore considerably less compared to that of traditional point type smoke detectors. More

Airport security for the Marshall Group of Companies

After installing security systems for the Marshall Group of Companies for almost two decades, integrated security installer and solutions specialist, Guardian Security and Communications, was invited to tender for an upgrade and for the provision of systems to serve a new Forward Base Operations and Maintenance Repair Operations complex for corporate jets.

After analysing the requirements of the project, which involves widely separated multiple sites, the company decided that the functionality of the Bewator Granta 5 access control system from Siemens Building Technologies Security Systems made it an ideal choice.

The Marshall Group of Companies comprises Marshall Aerospace, Marshall Specialist Vehicles, Marshall Motor Group and Cambridge City Airport - a regional airport, providing service for the fast growing businesses in East Anglia.  The security systems cover not only the main sites at Cambridge but also satellite sites such as the one at Mildenhall, 15 miles away. Each site has many buildings and, in total, the security system was initially required to serve a total of 60 doors.

Capacity for further expansion, including the addition of extra sites, was essential, as was the option to provide integration with the Company’s CCTV system in the future. It was also vital that any new security system would be able to interface with existing card readers, and that it would be compatible with the 2,500 cards already issued and in use.

“The system’s biggest benefit is undoubtedly ease of use,” said Tom Richards, Chief Security Officer for the Group. “Once you’ve understood the basics – and that’s certainly not complicated – it’s a simple process to create access groups, create and amend records and to interrogate the system.” More

Managing a shopping centre
Tunsgate Square Shopping Centre, the shopping centre in the heart of Guildford, has placed its trust in incumbent security provider, ADP Security Systems to run the centre on a day-to-day basis.  In the wake of Bill Dummer's retirement as joint centre manager, ADP will now provide two Assistant Centre Managers seven days a week, assisting the Centre Manager, Nicola Mendelssohn, to run the site.  The role means extra duties for ADP's security officers to maintain the standard of the facilities, and respond to shopkeepers or visitors' problems. 

Nicola, who had worked alongside Bill Dummer in a joint centre management role since October 1999, knows the security team very well.  She said: "ADP has risen to the challenge of providing us with two assistant centre managers to not only provide security but also to help me run the whole centre.  They undertake a variety of duties, in addition to their primary security role, telephoning for equipment repairs, testing the fire alarms, organizing bin collections and responding to issues as they occur."

David Preston, director of ADP, said: "We have been employed at Tunsgate Square Shopping Centre since 2003 to provide a safe environment for shoppers. Last summer we prevented a number of shoplifters from taking goods.  I have no doubt that our security officers will rise to this new challenge." More

Boots trial loss prevention solution

Health and beauty retailer Boots has joined forces with PCMS Group, to trial a loss-prevention programme. The trial, which will take place at Boots’s Mansfield store, incorporates a range of measures - POS data analysis, networked video and video analytics - within one package to deliver a robust solution to tackle fraud, theft and shrinkage.

The retailer is a customer of PCMS’s Vision SmartStore product, which uses transactional data to identify exceptions to operating norms that indicate possible shrinkage. The new initiative represents the next generation of loss prevention, with the integration of networked CCTV and video analytics alongside SmartStore, enabling retailers to identify such anomalies through real-time analysis of security camera footage, enabling an instantaneous response to instances of shrinkage.

Robert Jennings, head of loss prevention for Boots says: “The programme was designed to examine ways of increasing profitability and improving the customer experience by making existing systems, such as CCTV cameras, work harder. It also offers wider stakeholder appeal, with features that are equally applicable to the marketing and management functions as they are to the discipline of loss prevention.

“The video analytics software has been designed to monitor footage from across the network of in-store CCTV cameras and alert store personnel automatically to certain behaviour patterns. The system can recognise when customers spend more than a certain amount of time at a particular shelf but can also be configured to identify congestion, till queue length or even spillages in aisles,” concluded Jennings. More

Schools take the lead to stop thefts

Lead has become a major target for organised gangs looking to sell it on to scrap merchants who trade in this booming market. Often the metal is melted down and sold on to the Far East where there is a huge demand for it. Lead thieves recently targeted a school in Northampton three times in as many days. The roof at Briar Hill Primary School was torn apart by metal scavengers one day, then, within 24 hours, replacement lead was also taken. The next theft occurred over the weekend, meaning roofers had to replace the new metal they had put in the day before.

Headteacher Cath Keohane said: "We have been suffering from these thefts throughout the year and having three in one week was just too much.” To overcome this growing threat to schools, a new forensic ‘grease’ called SelectaDNA Grease has been developed which can be painted onto any zinc metal, copper piping or lead roofing. Once a thief handles the metal, the grease transfers onto their hands and clothing. The criminal is then irrefutably linked to the crime scene. The grease is almost impossible to remove, and contains both a UV tracer and a unique DNA code. The forensic grease could prove helpful in areas such as Bexley, south-east London, where police are joining together in a bid to stop the theft of metals from the borough.

From July-October 2007, 221 offences were reported where lead or other metal such as copper or zinc was stolen in Bexley. Figures show that 92 residential buildings were hit during that period, private businesses were targeted 59 times, schools or colleges 34 times, council buildings were hit on 19 occasions and religious buildings 17 times.

Bexley's Cabinet Member for the Environment, Councillor Gareth Bacon, said: "We are all pleased to see the police taking a proactive role in cracking down on this worrying trend of stealing lead." More

Secure parking for all

When Pure Parking, a provider of secure car parking in central London, had an incident whereby an employee collapsed and was unable to reach the phone to raise the alarm, it decided to purchase Peoplesafe. The lone worker device, Peoplesafe enables employees to raise the alarm, at the touch of a button, if they are attacked or taken ill. 

Pure Parking provides secure car parking, with fully attended service, at eight locations throughout Central London. Its car parks have been awarded the prestigious “Safer Park Mark”, a scheme run in association with the Association of Chief Police Officers. 

Looking for a way of providing its employees with the ability to assess risk and discreetly raise an alarm if threatened, Pure Parking decided to conduct a trial of the Peoplesafe package which also includes SIM and inclusive airtime, user training, 24 hour manned monitoring and pre & post sale customer support.  Such has been the success of the device that the company also adopted Peoplesafe for the managers and assistant manager of its associate company, Red Devil Storage.

Peoplesafe has enabled Red Devil Storage’s managers who often work alone and in the past have reported instances of attack and verbal abuse, to participate fully in managing their own safety.  Feedback from staff has been very positive who have seen the introduction of Peoplesafe as an improvement in their safety procedures. More