Quantum Secure to Automate Roger Williams University's Identity Management
Quantum Secure today announced that Roger Williams University has chosen the SAFE for Higher Education software suite to automate key physical security policies, simplify the on- and off-boarding of identities and generally improve security on the campus.
Established in 1956 and located on 140 acres overlooking Mount Hope Bay in Rhode Island, Roger Williams University is a private liberal arts college, currently ranked in the Top 10 of comprehensive colleges in the North by U.S. News & World Report. The university enrolls approximately 3,800 undergraduate and 850 graduate students in 36 liberal arts major programs and five professional schools.
The university was faced with the challenge of managing personnel and property security through identity control, physical security policies, processes and systems without full automation, according to a Quantum Secure press release.
Strategically, university decision makers wanted to integrate multiple systems and processes – ERP, public safety, facilities, housing, dining services and ID offices – to guarantee control of physical identities within multiple disparate systems without putting undue security risk on the university.
Using the software, the university was able to integrate its ERP systems with physical access control systems and automate key physical security processes.
With a projected return on investment of only six months, the university expects that:
- automating 40 percent of its security operations will ease the day-to-day efforts of the Physical Access Management Team;
- using the Right First Time and Reduced Cycle Time for cardholder administration, badge printing, compliance reporting, and physical access management should eliminate up to 95 percent of errors; and
- no additional hires will be needed to execute manual functions related to badging and metal key management processes, saving the university money.
“Quantum Secure has helped us immensely in our goals of becoming a 21st century campus, using technology to increase physical security while providing even better customer service,” said Joseph Pangborn, vice president and chief information officer of Roger Williams University. “With SAFE, we have increased our levels of security, improved our customer service and future-proofed our infrastructure for years to come.”
The university now operates with a 100 percent confidence level that all identities and related-area access have been properly approved and managed. For example, as students are assigned a residence suite for the semester via the Housing Department, SAFE ensures that they are immediately granted electronic access to that residence. Additionally, as students need access to a specific lab as part of that semester’s curriculum, SAFE provides them 24/7 physical access based on their enrollment in that particular course. If the Housing Department needs to temporarily disable access of a student as a result of an infraction, they can do so by simply logging into a Web-based SAFE portal and disabling that badge. Upon remediation of that infraction, that badge can automatically be re-activated.
“We are proud to work closely with Roger Williams University in this deployment of the SAFE for Higher Education solution,” said Ajay Jain, president and chief executive officer of Quantum Secure. “Our focus on higher-education leaders continues to highlight both the need for improved identity management and the direct strategic and operational improvements that can be gained with our enterprise software-based approach to physical identity and access management.”