February 2011
Features
Retail stores experience a flux of activity all year long
By Jason Dugger
Securing doors and valuables in retail locations without hindering operational efficiency can be a challenge. And that’s just from the customers’ perspective. Adding to the difficulty of securing these dynamic environments, retail stores must manage large, flexible workforces, typically with high turnover. Traditional locks and keys, even smart cards or key fobs, provide only a thin layer of security because they can be lost, stolen or borrowed. There also are the costs associated with lock changes and card inventory management.
Radio frequency is helping retailers protect inventories
By Lee Pernice
In general, retail is the fastest-paced, most frenetic business environment around. Retailers have to deal with constantly moving customers, large numbers of employees and extended business hours. On top of that, they have a great deal of merchandise moving from distribution centers to stores, onto the store floor and ultimately out the door with the customer. Keeping track of all of these moving parts isn’t easy.
Municipal utility turns to software solution for better business practices
By Jeff Whitney
Since 1923, the city of Garland, Texas, has been providing electricity service to its citizens through Garland Power & Light with its locally owned and controlled not-for-profit municipal utility. With nearly 68,000 customers, GP&L is the third-largest municipal utility in Texas and the 41st-largest in the nation.
Time for action calls for biometrics measures
By Caren Bachmann
The IT department at a large, campus-based organization had a minor disruption that could have turned into a major disaster. A new person on the cleaning company’s crew inadvertently spilled a bucket full of water and cleaning fluid in a telco closet that was being used for multiple purposes, and the liquid shorted out a vital piece of equipment. The accident was never reported, and it was only when services were disrupted that the IT department learned there was a problem.
It just makes sense to employ video surveillance and analytics for utilities
By Paul Smith
Electricity, natural gas, solar, wind, water, sewage plants, communications and nuclear plants: The services we take for granted, pay for and can’t live without. We often think that big events like terrorism and natural disasters are overriding concerns for utility companies, but it is the day-to-day operations that are most critical and that benefit most when a well-planned and properly implemented video surveillance solution is put in place.
Departments
We’re a nation of watchers; the flipside of that is, meanwhile, we’re also being watched
By Ronnie Rittenberry
Along with “It’s a Wonderful Life” and “Polar Express,” holiday viewing for me this year included video footage released mid- December by the King County (Wash.) Sheriff’s Office. The four-minute-or-so clip shows five teenage girls boarding a crowded Metro bus in Seattle and making their way to the back of the vehicle where they, without warning, begin attacking another teenage girl and her boyfriend, both of whom are just sitting there, minding their own business, as the video commences.
Trade shows play a key role in the security industry. Many companies use the time on the show floor to announce new products and introduce new technologies to potential
customers. At the recent ISC Solutions expo in New York, we took the opportunity to sit down with Eddie Lee to talk about NUVICO products and technologies.
Analog still has a vital role to play in the future
By Ian Scott
The video security industry is still a relatively young one, and like most technology-related sectors, it has experienced and continues to witness rapid changes brought about by technical advances and new applications. JVC’s own 80-year existence goes back well beyond the dawn of video security, but the company has been at the forefront of the industry since its first major growth period in the early 1980s.