A client contacted us with concerns regarding the quality of the CCTV system and asked us to review their CCTV system. The client had a serious of break-in, huge loss of stock and the system had failed to deliver.
The first problem encountered was relatively easy to solve in the sense that the CCTV installer had missed the point about drawing up an operational requirement regarding the system and benchmarks of testing.
After conducting a full audit of the CCTV system, we recommended some practical and easily affordable changes. The most obvious change we recommended, which really demonstrates why a service like ours is so cost effective is discussed below.
All internal CCTV cameras were sited to cover the warehouse. The objective stated for these cameras was to aid identification by the police, in the event of a break-in. The camera being activated by motion detection, except that the client had already installed a smoke cloak device that was activated at the just before the cameras, the end result being the camera would take lovely pictures of clouds of smoke.
Providing solutions
When an incident had occurred, the camera images were no use to man or beast. Just to add to the overall security arrangement, the DVR had been placed on an un-secure shelf next to the exit door, just sitting there for the criminal to take home with him or her. The first thing the customer did after the audit was to contact the installer at his own cost and to put the system right. Fortunately, the problem was remedied by introducing a timing element between the two security devises. The total cost of a poor and ineffective CCTV system was GB pound 45000! The cost of an audit to highlight the problems was GB pound 4500.
What price the site manager would put on his personal embarrassment is unknown, but the total cost to the company and the insurance company and the installer was huge, in time and money. All of this for not following the basic’s of an ‘Operational requirement’ and following simple standards.
This example is what we see day in and day out. Please if you need advice or don’t know the answers, just ask? It’s about working together, we can learn from each other, and only improve on what we have.
What price would you put on embarrassment?