In the post-9/11 world, the Village of Hoffman Estates, Ill., began planning in earnest to protect its water supply and other infrastructure, and the staff who serve its more than 51,000 residents.

The village has been able to mix and match transmission technologies and existing access control technology with newer technology to best fit its needs. An implementation phased over three years upgraded software along the way, using different installation vendors as dictated by the bid process, and integrated with other technologies to bring multiple buildings, vehicles and doors onto a system managed by one control interface.

The most recent phase of access control installation and upgrade, managed by Initial Electronics, Chicago, integrated video surveillance with the access control system, consisting of more than 20 cameras at six locations.

In Phase I of the installation, ACS4000 Web-enabled panels and readers from Brivo Systems LLC, Bethesda, Md., were installed at the village police station. Additionally, the company’s wireless panels were installed to control access to the village’s water towers and the chlorine facility.

For Phase II, currently ongoing, the village is expanding with installation of Brivo ACS5000 panels for the village hall, the public works center, the vehicle maintenance building and four fire stations. These installations will all be Ethernet-based and Web-controlled.

This phase also includes installation of video surveillance cameras and Dedicated Micros DVRs that are integrated with the access control system. Upon an alarm, the Brivo system tags the appropriate video to facilitate real-time access for analysis and possible action. After the event, personnel can review access control alarms and go directly to the video of each event.

Ken Shoemaker, Initial’s project engineer on-site, observes, “The installation process has been relatively smooth, painless in fact. Our techs are well-versed, and the manufacturers have provided great support. This is quite a large installation, and we’ve had no surprises.”

In the final analysis, Hoffman Estates has a flexible platform that can be upgraded and integrated with other systems, so the village can protect its investment and expand its system in a way that fits its budget and timing. A good partnership between the village, Initial Electronics and the supplying manufacturers has resulted in a smooth installation and a highly effective, easy-to-manage system.

Sidebar: projects in the news

Symantec Corp. had multiple needs and objectives the company wanted to address with SAFE Technology from Quantum Secure Inc., San Diego, including increased automation of key operational processes, reducing vulnerabilities and facilitating Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) compliance and productivity. Having successfully completed the deployment of SAFE, Symantec is now seeing $10 in savings for every $1 in investment, while complying fully with regulations like SOX in real-time. The software has enabled convergence between IT and physical security, and savings due to productivity increases have reached $1 million per year. The patent-pending SAFE System is comprised of a suite of three core applications that include physical security cardholder identity and credentials manager, to provide a superlative enterprise software layer over diverse physical access control systems; physical access compliance regulator, to provide built-in rules and policies to implement internal controls for achieving real-time regulation compliance; and physical security events, alarms and incidents manager, to manage events and incidents from diverse global physical security infrastructure.

Sidebar: projects in the news

The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey (PANYNJ) selected Raytheon as the prime contractor for the perimeter intrusion detection system (PIDS) project. Raytheon is leading an industry team to include 4D Security Solutions Inc. and ioimage to enhance perimeter security at JFK International, LaGuardia, Newark Liberty International and Teterboro airports. 4D will design, integrate, test and install the technology. ioimage’s intelligent video solution will serve as a key component in the project’s high-tech perimeter and video surveillance security system, which also includes advanced sensors and multi-sensor fusion, assessment subsystems and facility communications subsystems for complete site management at the airports. Designed for simplicity in installation and operation, ioimage units simultaneously detect perimeter intruders, suspicious baggage, illegally parked cars and removed items, while also featuring autonomous pan-tilt-zoom camera tracking.