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First event in SA on control rooms

The major challenge for security professionals responsible for control rooms is to ensure that it operates in a controlled fashion and not simply as a monitoring station. It is also important to provide the control room with an easy to interpret dashboard from where decisions can be made. This is according to Lyon Pretorius, the chief security officer of fire and general services at BMW (South Africa).

Michael Francisco, safety and security entrepreneur at MVD Safety Solutions explains that, in his opinion, one of the major challenges confronting the South African security industry is, “the continued Labour Relations Act changes with restrictive trading conditions regarding temporary staffing or casual workers. Technology upgrades are also an issue due to budgetary restrictions such as cost of telecommunications, power supply, etc.”

In terms of opportunities in the control room field, Francisco is looking forward to the introduction of technology upgrades such as the migration to the cloud as well as smartphone integration.

Pretorius and Francisco are both speaking at the Control Room Design and Operations conference taking place in Craighall from 28 to 30 October 2013, organised by the Institute for International Research. This event is the first ever of its kind in South Africa, and will be attended by key stakeholders from both the public and private sectors.

For more information, visit the website, www.iir.co.za/­controlroom or contact Leanca Bennett on +27 (0)11 771 7000 or alternatively e-mail lbennett@iir.co.za for more details.

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