IPfocus - IP UserGroup

IPfocusHoneywell provide Aldermary House with RemotelyMonitored Access Control, Video and ‘Meet & Greet’Aldermary House is a modern multi-tenanted, multi-storyoffice building located in the City of London’s “Square Mile”financial district.The SituationAldermary House is home to eight different businesses,each operating on separate floors. Visitors would buzz theintercom, be granted entry by a security guard at the mainreception desk where they would sign in, and then be ableto visit a tenanting company.Multi-tenanted buildings are prone to a myriad of securityrisks, access issues and periods where the building iscompletely empty.Brian Weekes, Building Manager at Aldermary House wasfaced with complex security challenges and as a resultused a 24 hour manned guard solution to ensure thebuilding was secure at all times. “A manned guardingcontract was the best solution available to us at the time,however it was costly and difficult to manage,” commentedWeekes. “It was a constant challenge knowing exactly whowas in the building at any one time.”Weekes approached his security partner, SecureWais UKLtd to find a new and improved solution that wouldalleviate the heavy financial costs and inefficiencyassociated with manned guarding. It is estimated thatAldermary House was spending in the region of £40,000-50,000 per annum on out of hours manned guarding.The SolutionHaving carefully assessed the requirement, SecureWaisproposed the installation of a new integrated accesscontrol, video and intercom “Meet & Greet” system whichwould transform the way people would enter and leaveAldermary House and still meet security requirements.“We have used Honeywell solutions for many years andhad very little hesitation in recommending the WIN-PAKTMPro Central Station as the correct solution for Weekes’requirement,” stated Allan Waisman, CEO SecureWaisThe system was fully installed over a period of two weekswith no resulting disruption to the client.36_issue 27An important element in the system design was for theaccess, intercom and video to be remotely monitored at asecure control room. This would alleviate the need for acontrol room onsite and reduce costly manned guardingcontracts.To address the visitor management issues faced by Weekesduring out of hour’s periods, an outstation was installed bySecureWais to the external façade of the building adjacentto the main entrance. Upon arrival, the visitor presses thecall button and is immediately connected to theSecureWais National Security Institute (NSI) approved callcentre.The call centre has audio and video communications withAldermary House. When activated, the call centre operativeasks the visitor a set of questions before contacting therelevant host. This could be the office manager of thegiven tenant. Once contacted, the host providesauthorisation and the visitor is granted entry. Then the callcentre terminates the site link and the SecureWais “Meet &Greet” service is completed. To close the loop, a videorecording is kept on the Digital Video Recorder (DVR).The building / security management team remain incomplete control of the access control card administrationbut do so by emailing the SecureWais office to have cardsadded or deleted remotely. Database reports are availableat any time.To provide this critical service and solve the challengesfaced by Weekes, SecureWais chose Honeywell WIN-PAKTMPRO Central Station.Honeywell WIN-PAK PRO Central Station is a departure fromtraditional access control systems. It removes the tasks ofinstalling software (because the software is run from theCentral Station on a secure server) and managingoperating systems on site. Any potential computercompatibility or virus protection issues can also be dealtwith easily away from site.The total cost of ownership is reduced to a manageableservice fee, which results in the end-user benefiting fromlower maintenance costs, lower guarding costs and peaceof mind that visitor management and building entry iscontrolled at all times.The system at Aldermary House consists of the HoneywellN1000 Access Panel, several proximity readers within theelevator and on selected doors integrated with video anddoor entry intercom.BenefitsThe building is now completely secure without the needfor any manned guarding after hours. This has resulted inthe client saving over £40,000 per annum using a remotecentral monitoring solution.The Building Manager has full records of who has enteredand left the building at all times. From a customer serviceperspective tenanted businesses within Aldermary Househave a much improved visitor management process. And itwill ultimately help Aldermary House to attract newtenants and help with lease renewals.Brian Weekes, The Building Manager at Aldermary House“The beauty of the system is its simplicity,” added Weekes.“I can control the front doors remotely and know exactlywho is in the building at any given time. This has beenachieved by the expertise of SecureWais and Honeywellworking together.”In terms of WIN-PAK PRO Central Station, the benefits faroutweigh the next best alternatives for both the end-userand the installer. There is no software to install at site andminimal system training is required.Many installer service calls are spent fixing computerrelated issues that develop from virus attacks,incompatibility with other programs and lack of databasemaintenance. WIN-PAK PRO Central Station does notrequire software installation at the end-user’s locationthus eliminating most service calls. This means peace ofmind for the client and lets the installer concentrate ongrowing the business.Badge production is of value to a client who wants thesecurity of having printed photo-ID badges, but cannotjustify the implementation cost due to the small number ofbadges required.WIN-PAK PRO Central Station allows the installer to offerhis clients full photo-ID badge production with minimalinvestment since the installer can spread the cost of theprinter across multiple accounts. Combined with the webbrowser interface, the service becomes even easier;images can be uploaded via the web and are instantlyretrieved by the installer. It also offers seamlessintegration for monitoring a customer’s digital videosystem. Operators can monitor live video from up to 16different accounts at a time. They can pan, tilt and zoomcameras from any account. Remote monitoring alsoincludes Visual Video Verification, which allows a liveimage to be compared to a stored database image of anindividual before access is granted. This is a very usefulfeature as the building contains a number of CCTVcameras.Customers can also access their account from any enabledweb browser. The web browser allows customers to add orremove users and generate their own reports.“The functionality of WIN-PAK PRO Central Station wasappealing to the client in this instance,” said Waisman.”They get the best of both worlds - the control and secureintegrity of a state of the art access / visitor managementsystem without any of the hassle of managing it on a dailybasis as this is done remotely by SecureWais.”