IP’s on the menu

Today’s discerning end user of security systems is always looking for the Holy Grail – an installer with well-trained sales and engineering staff that can offer a high level of service and consistently provide excellent customer care and support.

As one of the industry’s leading manufacturers, Panasonic (UK) is also on the look-out for installation companies with which it can work in harmony. With this in mind, the CCTV specialist has firmly established its Premier Installer Scheme, accrediting only those systems contractors who can meet several demanding criteria: engineers must attend at least three training courses per year, the installer has to demonstrate the highest standards of technical service and support (including repairs at component level) and carry a full compliment of demonstration stock for on-site presentations to the potential purchaser.

In return, Premier Installers enjoy the full support of Panasonic and the prestige of having achieved a standard of excellence above all other installation concerns.

To highlight the benefits of such a scheme to the end user, Security Management Today has again teamed up with Panasonic (UK) in offering a third series of detailed case studies encompassing all manner of different end user installations.

What qualities and skills do you need to look for in your installer? How should you work with them? How might you extract the maximum benefit from that working relationship?

We’ll attempt to answer these and further questions for you as we continue this hugely popular strand of dedicated articles for the practising in-house professional.

In today's fast-moving world, and in particular in the convenience foods sector, the supply of high quality food products delivered on time and at a reasonable cost is crucial in what is an extremely competitive marketplace.

Standing out as a market leader in its field, Kepak Convenience Foods (KCF) – a company that first traded as Goldstar Meats back in April 1979 – kick-started its existence as the producer of frozen beef burgers for the Irish food service market. By the end of 1989, the company’s business had grown to such an extent that it supplied half of the retail frozen burgers sold on the Irish market, and half of all the food service frozen beef burgers sold to the independent sector.

The development of KCF’s highly successful ‘own label’ business began in the UK in 1990. Since 1999, Kepak’s chilled foods business has witnessed dramatic growth under the Rustlers brand, which enjoys a dominant share of the rapidly growing hot snacks category in the UK thanks to sustained high annual growth rates.

KCF has become one of the key drivers of the chilled snacks category in the UK, and its brand of Rustlers burgers – retailed in supermarkets throughout the nation – is now the market leader in the microwave burger market. Supply of the company’s ‘quick and easy to prepare’ hot filling snacks has seen KCF’s Rustlers business grow at a far quicker rate than that of the overall market for convenience foods.

Inflexible coax: the issue

Although the company operates from four separate sites, the latest of these is a 160,000 square feet food processing facility at Kirkham, near Blackpool which was opened last autumn.

To contribute to the site’s overall security and process management procedures, a surveillance system capable of providing a number of key operational attributes was earmarked for this facility. Tasked with the overall responsibility for procuring the site’s surveillance system, Chris Whelan – KCF’s IT manager – told SMT about his key objectives.

“The decision on a specification for the surveillance system was based on experience gained at our Preston facility, where a traditional coax cable-based CCTV system is installed,” explained Whelan. “Due in no small part to the company’s rapid growth, which has been reflected in the need to expand and redesign shop floor work space, we have found the inherent inflexibility of coax difficult to deal with when needing to relocate or add more cameras to the existing system.”

To allow the easy expansion and repositioning of cameras at the new site, if and when this should be necessary, Whelan has opted to pursue the IP route. Rather than an analogue system, he believed that this would offer the greater amount of flexibility on site that he was looking for. By way of ensuring that the correct camera coverage would be achieved, a thorough assessment of the number of proposed camera positions and their specifications was duly instigated. A full audit of the site was conducted by management, engineers and several members of the IT Department.

The types of camera to be deployed were chosen according to Whelan’s defined criteria, encompassing both the nature of the area to be monitored and the precise visual information required. For instance, the site has three ‘Out’ and four ‘In’ loading bays. When applied to this area, the audit methodology meant that fixed rather than PTZ cameras were prescribed. This suits the precise nature of the internal and external dome camera coverage required for the zone. For safety reasons, comprehensive monitoring of delivery vehicles reversing up to ramps and the loading procedure could be carried out and images captured without the need for fully-functional camera control.

Experience begins to count

The job of making the IP surveillance system a reality was put out for tender. Two companies were in line. Having offered a very competitive reply to tender (and with the advantage of having previously supplied surveillance installations for KCF at both its Preston and Dublin locations), Panasonic Premier Installer Zoom CCTV dominated Whelan’s thoughts.

The company was duly asked to complete the specification and design of an IP-based surveillance system for the new KCF facility.

Initially, Whelan met with John Lawrenson, the technical director at Zoom CCTV, to discuss and evaluate the proposed visual imaging solution. “We talked over the various security and process control management scenarios highlighted by KCF’s team, then appraised each in turn to secure the best working solution,” recalled Lawrenson. “The Kepak site has the capability to operate 24 hours per day if production demands should necessitate that, so we needed to provide a future-proof solution that would cater for this from the outset.”

Above all, deploying IP over an existing UTP IT structured cabling network means that installations are ‘future-proofed’ from Day One, offering the degree of surveillance system flexibility that end users value so highly

Chris Whelan continued: “When you are committing what is a not insubstantial company resource of over £45,000, as a client you really do need to be confident in your choice of business partner. The level of knowledge and experience displayed by Zoom was paramount. In addition, the Panasonic accreditation means that the company’s engineers, surveyors and installation project managers attend regular training on technical support and service-related issues. The real benefit to KCF has come in the form of product advice we’ve been able to obtain. This level of technical support has given us peace of mind that the IP dome camera products chosen represent a reliable and high quality solution.”

A thorny problem for Zoom CCTV to counter was that the system had to be installed while the site was operational. To facilitate this, Zoom worked within KCF’s Health and Safety controls, right down to the relatively minor detail of cleaning their installation equipment before entering the site. On this aspect, Whelan confirmed that the installers project managed the site work without allowing any impedance to the client’s daily business activities.

Privacy zone masking

Bounded as it is by a brook, a railway line and located next to residential areas, the food processing site’s perimeter is overseen by six dome cameras. Chosen for their rugged build, these cameras feature a 22x zoom lens and automatic colour/mono switchover imaging (rendering them ideal for outdoor applications). In-built privacy zone masking also ensures that local residents can be assured the powerful observation system is designed to uphold their right to privacy. This is obviously of great importance in relation to the Human Rights Act, etc.

An additional pair of domes have been installed to watch over the Security Gatehouse and its main exit/entrance gates. Delivering crisp, clear 570 TV lines of resolution, the cameras’ 2x varifocal lenses enable fast, easy installation and fine adjustment to precisely frame the desired field of view. Powered locally by a 240 V supply, the dome cameras’ video output is relayed back to the factory via coax cables. At the IT equipment room, the analogue pictures are processed by an encoder and passed on to the IP Ethernet system via a network switch.

Within the factory, Kepak’s own IT Department installed a bespoke Cat 5 UTP cabling network – along with dedicated IP cabinets – to supply internal cameras with ‘Power over Ethernet’ distributed from centrally located IP67 network boxes. Ensuring the ample delivery of camera power (within 12 V DC tolerance limits), the Cat 5 cable runs were kept to a minimum length of 70 metres.

A major benefit with this method of delivering power across UTP is that it saves on both installation time and costs when up against having to supply each camera point with a local fused spur.

In all, nine fully-functional PTZ IP cameras and 22 fixed IP dome cameras are deployed to offer internal coverage at KCF’s Kirkham facility. IP camera video in the factory is run over a fibre optic backbone between fibre switches, joining point-to-point hubs together.

Chris Whelan told SMT: “The functionality is much better with IP. We went a step further by separating the surveillance system from the IT data system, partitioning it on virtual area networks (LANs). The site’s IT network structured cabling has approximately 300 devices attached to it, and we can honestly say that the IP surveillance system hasn’t affected IT data transfer in any way.”

Operational flexibility is key

Whelan is obviously enthused by the new system, particularly with regard to its operational flexibility. “We can ‘go outside’ of the site if we want to via a wide area network (WAN). In this way,” outlined Whelan, “an external production manager is able to review the local food processing operation. Also, by using UTP structured cabling it’s pretty easy to add more cameras as and when they’re required. We’ve made sure that the Cat 5-based system has lots of spare capacity built into it for genuine ‘plug-and-play’ versatility.”

Within the processing facility, the IP surveillance system is used to monitor general security and management of the food process flow along the production lines. Meantime, on the potential growth of the site Whelan commented: “The IP system adds real flexibility to our operation as the production processes are still being developed and fine-tuned. The surveillance system can also be easily adapted to reflect changes and growth within the business, which is pretty much ideal for us.”

IP: is it under control?

A graphical software package is used on the local network to control the system’s dome cameras ‘on screen’ via a mouse from nominated network PCs. With this arrangement, the site manager and two production floor managers are able to access the IP system and review any recorded footage. Key managers on the ‘shop floor’ can also access the system via a unique password (with access being locked down to specific cameras for both live viewing and historical playback).

One key benefit of the IP cameras is that the factory floor staff are aware the system is in constant operation, which helps to ensure that the company’s Health and Safety procedures are being employed in compliance with stringent hygiene regulations.

The IP camera system’s networked images are recorded for 31 days onto a central server in the IT equipment room which boasts two-terabyte storage capacity. All camera images are recorded by way of self-managing video motion detection. Programmed at a rate of two frames per second, this feature makes the system very efficient in terms of the digital storage capacity requirement.

In summary, Chris Whelan concluded: “IP technology is set to change the way in which surveillance monitoring techniques are applied. The strength of IP-based systems lies in their inherent ability to handle large numbers of devices such as cameras, control points and recording nodes, and to communicate with them on an ever-increasing scale. Another major benefit is the ease of expansion with these systems. It’s simple and efficient to add extra users and cameras.”

Above all, deploying IP over an existing UTP IT structured cabling network means that installations are ‘future-proofed’ from Day One, offering the degree of surveillance system flexibility that end users value so highly.