The Importance of Securing Physical Security
What is the importance of securing physical security? With more devices connected through the network, it is critical to understand the meaning and the significance of securing your physical security systems. Physical security systems are vulnerable to hackers and major cyber-attacks. Prime recommends following these five simple steps to mitigate the risk of your security systems:
1. Encrypt your Data
Step one in protecting your information is to encrypt your data. This critical step provides you an extra layer of protection in case your system is breached the data is meaningless to the hacker because a key is required to translate the data. This step will protect from someone being able to read your data however it will not stop a hacker from gaining unwanted access to your network.
2. Authenticating Users
Authenticating users is a powerful step because it prevents your data from getting into the wrong hands. There are two forms of defense with authenticating users first on the client side by providing a password or other means of verification and on the server side by identifying whether 3rd party servers can be trusted.
3. Authorizing Users
Our third suggestion is ensuring only authorized users have access to your data. Making the data only available to authorized users is a simple and effective step to take in protecting your physical security.
4. Educating your Personnel
Of course, educating your staff on the correct processes and policies. It is a simple and crucial step to protect your data from within. Educating users on cybersecurity best practices for passwords, identifying risky applications, and phishing emails.
5. Working with a Partner You Trust
Lastly, we recommend working with a trusted partner to ensure your physical security solutions are equipped with the proper back-end solution to encrypt data and authenticate users.
Are you sure you’re protected? Contact our team today!
Top 5 Benefits of License Plate Recognition
For large distribution and manufacturing facilities, one of the major pain points is the heavy traffic flow in shipping & receiving areas. Manual efforts of tracking who is entering and exiting can be costly which is why it is so beneficial to have an automatic license plate recognition (ALPR) system like Genetec’s AutoVu. With an ALPR system in place, your facility will have the ability to track who’s coming and going, how long they have been on site, generate reports regarding activity and share critical information with the appropriate personnel. Here are the Top 5 Benefits of Having an ALPR system.
1. Understand Who’s Coming & Going
The shipping and receiving areas can be hectic and if your crew is trying to manually document pickup and drop off it can be even more chaotic. By having an ALPR system in place you can eliminate the need for manual documentation. The ALPR solution can easily identify who is coming and going and how long they have been at your facility.
2. Be Aware of Your Facility
Understanding if there is suspicious activity or if a threat has been identified is critical. With an ALPR solution, you will be able to identify suspicious activity and zero in on it with your surveillance cameras.
3. Unified Security Solution
By using Genetec’s AutoVu once a threat has been identified you will have the ability to trigger alarms, control access entry, and modify the system behavior by setting a threat level across your security platform.
4. Reporting Tools
With the help of Genetec’s AutoVu easily capture license plate information, identify people of interest and report to law enforcement if needed.
5.Understanding & Sharing Data
Not only does Genetec’s AutoVu serve as a powerful security tool it also captures data such as heavy traffic flow and crowded parking so you can see where your facility may need to expand.
Genetec’s AutoVu is just one powerful piece of Genetec’s Security Center Platform, to learn more about how this can benefit your facility and any other concerns you may have with your current security solution contact our National Accounts Team.
Securing Your Facility Inside and Out
The need to protect and secure manufacturing personnel and facilities while maintaining a safe working environment is a challenging initiative. Manufacturing plants are dynamic environments with the movement of personnel, goods, and equipment each presenting a unique set of challenges. There is a vast range of hazards ranging from perimeter intrusions, production line malfunctions, theft and workplace violence. Identifying and acting on these issues are crucial components to the productivity and safety of any manufacturing facility. Here are the top three concerns when securing your facility inside and out!
1. Protecting Your Personnel
Your top concern as a manufacturing facility is providing your employees a safe working environment. Workplace violence falls, production line safety and heavy equipment operations can put employees and employers at risk. Video surveillance can be used to monitor operations and make sure that safety procedures are being followed. The video can also be used for liability claims.
2. Protecting Your Product
After ensuring the safety of your employees your next focus is protecting your product. This can be done through remote assembly line supervision. While monitoring for safety you can also look for ways to improve production efficiency whether it’s the strategic placement of raw materials or closely viewing equipment for stress or malfunctions video can capture the data you need to take the best course of action.
3. Protecting Your Perimeter
Manufacturing facilities contain multiple items that need to be secured. From raw materials including potentially dangerous chemicals to finished goods, tools, powered equipment are all desirable targets to thieves and terrorists. Conducting a professional security assessment of the exterior of your facilities can go along way to keeping these items in your possession helping to keep costs down and maintaining production and delivery schedules.
Partner with Prime
This is where Prime’s National Account team can help. We are committed to being your partner with regards to designing, deploying and supporting security solutions that help you meet these challenges. Prime is aligned with leading manufacturers in video surveillance, access control, intrusion detection, license plate recognition and other security platforms. Our team of in-house experts is ready to assist you in constructing a solution that is easy to use and manage while providing the effectiveness that you need.
Why Prime? Prime Communications prides itself on our three uniques:
- Responsiveness
- Project management expertise
- Customized solutions
Our Proven Process
Infrastructure and network capabilities make us a single source for the cabling and low voltage components of your project.
Improve Customer Experience & In-Store Sales in 5 Steps
1. Customer Flow
The first step in improving customer experience is understanding how customers are moving through your store. In-store traffic counters can identify the flow of traffic and pinpoint how customers are entering, exiting, and moving around your store. By utilizing the foot traffic to your advantage you can better understand what brings shoppers into your store. The shopper traffic data allows marketing to see what promotions are working and ones that don’t. Understanding the trends in footfall can improve the overall customer experience.
Traffic Counter
2. Heat Mapping
The second step after understanding traffic flow is understanding how customers are interacting with your product. This is achieved by heat mapping. With the heat mapping capabilities, you can identify hotspots and dead spots. Marketing can then use these analytics to understand product placement and promotions.
Heat Mapping
3. Facial Recognition
Next on the list is facial recognition capabilities. With people counters you know how shoppers are coming in the store and what products they are interested in, the next step is identifying who those shoppers are. Facial recognition technology assists with better understanding who your customer is by identifying demographics such as age and gender.
4. Utilizing Staff
The fourth step is utilizing your employees effectively. According to the Timetrade: The State of Retail (2015) 90% of consumers are more likely to convert when helped by a knowledgeable associate. In-store shoppers choose a brick-and-mortar store because they’re looking for an experience. It can be challenging understanding where to deploy your employees, that’s where retail analytics come in. Retail analytics allow you to optimize your personnel by notifying you when departments are more crowded so more shoppers are getting the help they need. This leads to more sales and happy shoppers.
5. Quality Assurance
The last step on this list is quality assurance. Retail analytics have the abilities to ensure that shelves are stocked with products that are in optimal condition. These analytics have the ability to forecast when inventory needs to be replenished. You will always have products in stock and in good condition so your shoppers will get exactly what they came for.
Retail Analytics
Interested in improving your customer experience? Contact us about how we can implement Genetec’s Retail Sense in your already existing security system.
The Top 5 Reasons why a Centralized Security Solution is Crucial to Productivity
The need to protect and secure manufacturing personnel & facilities while maintaining a safe work environment is a challenging initiative. With all the different processes that production facilities follow it can become hectic to manage, which is why it is imperative to have a centralized security solution. To shed light on the concerns facilities managers face the experts at Prime Communications have compiled The Top 5 Reasons why a Centralized Security Solution is Crucial to Productivity.
1. Detect & Immediately Respond to Threats
At the top of the list is being able to instantly detect and respond to threats. There can be a vast range of hazards such as workplace violence, perimeter intrusions, production line malfunctions, or internal theft. Identifying and acting on these issues are crucial components to the productivity of any manufacturing facility.
2. Perimeter Protection
Secondly, manufacturing facilities need a centralized security solution to provide perimeter protection. Knowing all the activity that is coming in and out of your facility alleviates and greatly benefits all areas of the company. Specifically, in the shipping and receiving areas where having the ability to receive alerts, visual verification of personnel and license plates recognition increases safety and eliminates the manpower it takes to manually document shipments coming in and out of the facility.
3. Monitor Lines & Processes Remotely
The third reason is having the ability to remotely monitor assembly lines and processes. Gathering live video data and updates improves quality assurance and detects if there are any discrepancies in the production line. With centralized monitoring, facility managers will notice the increase in productivity and the reduction in downtime.
4. Evaluate Liability Claims
Number four on the list is being able to utilize video surveillance footage to use in the case of liability claims such as slip and fall. Having the ability to access video of an incident has been proven to be useful and valuable in demonstrating the veracity of these claims. The capability to evaluate accidents and document the occurrence allows companies to save the resources and money otherwise spent on dealing with false liability claims.
5. Provide Remote Troubleshooting and Maintenance Support
Lastly, being able to remotely troubleshoot operational issues and safely determine if onsite maintenance support is required. Manufacturing relies on machine production; therefore it is crucial to be able to have the ability to identify a malfunction via video instead of risking staff safety to identify the problem. With the ability to remotely troubleshoot you can check, analyze, and report the issues with one system. If machinery does require maintenance personnel to fix any issues they are one step ahead by already having the issue identified.
Conclusion
Prime Communications provides the tools your facility needs to allow you to cost effectively meet all the demands of protecting personnel and productivity. We bring a range of manufacturing experience, innovative thinking, and technology-driven solutions to address these issues. By partnering with industry standouts such as Genetec and Axis Communications we have the tools and capabilities to handle any of your security needs:
- Video Surveillance
- Access Control
- Intelligent Video Analytics
- Intrusion Detection Alarms
- Perimeter Intrusion Detection
- Centralized Monitoring
- License Plate Recognition
View all of our security & infrastructure solutions for manufacturing facilities.