Market Focus: Retail Security

Oct. 27, 2008
A roundup of recent security applications and installations

Simon Properties Selects Uniformed Guard Services
Andrews Intl. recently signed a multi-year, multi-million dollar regional contract for uniformed security services for Simon Property Group Inc., the largest public U.S. real estate company. Andrews Intl. will provide security services for four regional malls in California and Nevada, including Del Amo Fashion Center, Hilltop Mall, Meadowood Mall and Stoneridge Shopping Center. “This is an opportunity for Simon Properties and Andrews Intl. to work together to create an environment for public safety at our centers,” says John Petruzzi, vice president, Corporate Security and Emergency Managment for Simon Property Group.

Andrews Intl.’s responsibilities include the development, training, scheduling and coordination of a security officer program and the provision of the necessary management and security personnel.

Cincinnati Mall Deploys IP Surveillance
Northgate Mall in Cincinnati has installed an IP Video CCTV surveillance system from IndigoVision as part of a recent renovation. The mall has more than 1.1 million square feet of retail space and more than 100 specialty shops and four department stores. Twenty-seven cameras monitor the main public shopping areas inside the mall and the surrounding areas around the outside of the building. The system was designed and installed by IndigoVision’s local authorized partner Mobilcomm.

Control Center, IndigoVision’s IP Video and alarm management software, is used by operators to view live and recorded video from the cameras. Two workstations are used — one in the main security control room and one in the manager’s office. Video is recorded using the supplier’s Network Video Recorder (NVR) software running on a Windows 2003 server. Each camera is connected to an IndigoVision 8000 transmitter/receiver module which converts the analog feed to DVD-quality digital video for transmission over the network.

Wireless Megapixel Cameras Protect New Jersey Mall
The Livingston Mall in Livingston, N.J., has deployed IQeye megapixel IP cameras from IQinVision to improve security at the super-regional shopping center. Supreme Security Systems Inc. of Union, N.J., designed and installed the integrated, IP-based video surveillance system and is overseeing its continued expansion. The cameras are trained on strategic locations both inside the mall and at outside entrances and in the parking lot.

Firetide supplied a wireless mesh network, which was crucial to the installation by ensuring excellent transmission performance, cost savings and enhanced ease of installation and expansion.

Also key to the installation was IQinVision’s megapixel technology, which reduced the number of cameras required. The mall is currently expanding and future plans call for increasing the number of cameras and mesh nodes. Over time, video feeds presently used for incident review at the mall, will be available for live monitoring at the Livingston Police Department and, eventually, in LPD cars patrolling the mall and responding to incidents. Wireless technology will also be instrumental in extending the reach of the system and providing video access for the Livingston Police Department.

BMW Dealer Chooses Video Analytics
The Nick Whale BMW car dealership in Warwick, England, has successfully installed a video surveillance system from ioimage to safeguard its outdoor sales site from theft and vandalism, which added up to $1 million in damages a year. The installation, featuring advanced tracking and intrusion detection capabilities, has already helped the dealership detect and remove several intruders. Given the rapid success of the cost-effective, easy-to-install solution, the group plans to deploy a similar system at additional car dealerships this summer. Prior to deploying the system, the dealership had deployed an external passive sensor system that failed to deliver complete site coverage due to blockages caused by continuously moving stock. As a result, the dealership suffered an average of five thefts per year, with each incident involving up to five stolen cars.

Scandinavian McDonald’s Opts for POS Solution
McDonald’s restaurants in Scandinavia have deployed an integrated Point Of Sale and IP video surveillance system called CheckView, from Checkpoint Systems Inc., which is based on the XProtect software from Milestone Systems.

The system provides integrated features, such as remote clients to monitor retail transactions from the POS system, easily searchable and viewable simultaneously with the IP video images from the cash registers. It helps McDonald’s better analyze and manage transactions.

The Electronic Point of Sale (EPOS) module records every transaction from the cash register and combines them with the correlated event video in the XProtect Transact database by date, time and location. This makes it possible to quickly and easily search transactions by specific information, and it can be done remotely over the network, enabling the restaurants to monitor for internal theft and administrative errors.