Their size, scale and the activities carried out on them mean that industrial locations have very specific security requirements. Traditionally, owners and operators of these sites have relied on manned guarding to control access and protect people, property and assets. However, this approach can lead to vulnerabilities and ignores the operational and cost saving benefits that can be achieved by combining a physical presence with CCTV and remote monitoring.

Thieves and vandals are increasingly targeting industrial sites and with tools, plant and materials often left in view they are increasingly the focus of arson attacks, machinery and metal thefts. In April around £9000 worth of electrical items, tools and welding equipment were stolen during a break-in at an industrial site in Buckie. In the same month, there were two serious incidents when 52 copper anodes stored in cyanide soaked cotton bags were stolen from an industrial site in Morecambe, shortly after 200 cyanide coated metal balls were stolen from Poulton Industrial Estate.

To effectively secure an industrial plant it is important to remember that there is no one-size-fits all solution, and designing and implementing a security strategy requires a comprehensive risk and threat assessment which analyses an organisation’s activities, premises and facilities to identify how to keep property and assets safe, as well as addressing the risk posed to staff and visitors. Some business sectors are more at risk than others and those operating in the defence and pharmaceutical sectors, for example, must be particularly vigilant.

Security is now multi-faceted and specialist services providers are able to offer a solution that includes manned guarding, surveillance technology and remote monitoring, combining the most appropriate elements of each discipline. This holistic approach avoids sub-dividing various service offerings into separate departments and maximises the effectiveness of state-of-the-art CCTV and access control technology, which can operate according to the way a site is occupied. For instance, manned guarding could be used in the daytime, when a site is most busy, and CCTV and remote monitoring at night.

One significant benefit of this approach is that it can save costs. Corps Security has demonstrated that we can reduce a customer’s overall spend by up to 30% without detriment to its security regime, simply by replacing manned guarding with lower cost, but equally effective, electronic security with remote monitoring.

Remote monitoring can utilise technology to excellent effect. For example, the implementation of IP-based video and audio transmitter/recorder technology provides the earliest possible warning of a security threat and enables the efficient and effective deployment of manned security personnel. In the event that an intruder is identified, an operative at the remote monitoring centre can issue a verbal warning – an approach which has been proven to stop between 80 and 90% of incidents going any further. 

Looking ahead, although a mainstay of the newspaper headlines at the moment, the negative publicity surrounding drones should not obscure the fact that they are having an increasingly positive role to play in a security strategy. They have the ability to monitor large industrial sites and beam images back to a remote monitoring centre. These devices can also enhance access control, particularly in environments where there is a lot of perimeter fencing, and this could work out to be much less expensive than installing CCTV or paying manned guards to cover the same area.

Using security services from one supplier, rather than using different companies for manned guarding, surveillance technology and remote monitoring makes complete sense. Furthermore, this approach ensures that a security services provider can be flexible and responsive by, for example, swapping manned hours for monitored hours when necessary, something that is particularly useful for industrial plants.