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Manage technology and manpower

Having worked in the security and facilities arena for over 30 years, I’ve had the privilege of being introduced to many systems, sub-systems and technologies that have been implemented at customers ranging from universities, retail, mining, hospitals, property and government, amongst others, with varying degrees of success.

Kevin Buret, MD of Sukema Integrated Solutions.

The two common threads in all of these is the fact that every piece of equipment or incident has a XY coordinate on earth, and they all generate data of some form which is stored in a database. These are the two most under-utilised components in security today, largely because many of the advisors in the industry do not have a deep enough understanding of how to extract the value from it.

We have been introduced to every acronym known to mankind – BMS, IMS, GIS, FMS, RFID, GPS, PSIM, scada and the list goes on. One of the more recent terms has been PSIM (Physical Security Information Management) which integrates numerous types of predominantly security systems and technologies into a single interface, providing operators a command and control type environment, yet far from true command and control. Many of these are proprietary systems, meaning they can only function with one particular brand of equipment; if you have any legacy technology that is not part of the brand, you need to replace it to benefit from PSIM.

This, however, is a total misconception as there are a few PSIMs that are open platforms, which can integrate with most mainstream technologies and sub-systems without the need to strip and replace anything. Since 2015, some of the original inventors of PSIM are themselves starting to realise and say that PSIM on its own has its value, but is too loosely thrown around in conversation without a deeper knowledge of what makes these systems function optimally.

One should not view any of these technologies or systems in isolation as they are totally dependent on a number of things:

• Correctly functioning technology is required to feed information into a PSIM.

• Operators need to sit behind the PSIM and manually respond to alerts.

The human factor

Security 101, but is it happening as it should? No, because technology needs to be maintained, inspected, repaired or replaced in order to stay functional, and we most often rely on the human factor to report these failures and monitor the progress of getting it functional again – within a specified SLA timeframe.

The reliance on the human factor to secure, respond, report and make decisions is far too great. Unfortunately, and without trying to generalise or offend anyone, customers spend millions of rand on technology and systems ranging from CCTV, access control, HVAC and more, as well as on control rooms to house the monitoring functions of these investments. Then they place it in the hands of staff who are not adequately trained, qualified or experienced to manage it effectively. We only have ourselves to blame as we all know that if you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it.

Sukema has been speaking about PSIM and CSIM (Converged Security Information Management) for many years already as we understand the importance of bringing physical and electronic security together in line with operational requirements. It is a combination of PSIM, manpower management, technology maintenance, facility management and building management all in one, including the operational issues relevant to the specific customer or sites.

These disciplines mentioned will not be operating in silos within the next two to three years, and are starting to merge into CSIM (or whatever other acronym it might end up as) which is moving towards taking over a large component of BMS and FMS. Customers can already have a fully integrated and converged platform in place, utilising all existing equipment and technology across any number of sites, and manage the manpower behind it all from a single instance of the software.

Properly designed systems work

CSIM ensures that your technology is functioning correctly or is busy being attended to if not in accordance with your SLA, without any human intervention. It also ensures that physical security is correctly in place when and where it should be, monitoring and measuring operational requirements according to KPIs (key performance indicators), in real time.

There is a total disconnect in the market on the rand value between technology hardware (items that come in a box which we can see, touch and feel) and good, properly implemented software management systems that we can’t touch and feel. The value of systems such as PSIM is vastly underestimated and should form approximately 15%-20% of your total security budget.

It is proven that more than 30% of security services conducted by manpower is lost due to varying factors, and there is a general lack of accountability. Many of our medium to large customers spend between R80 million and R120 million on physical security annually, which equates to more than R26 million per annum (at the lower budget figure) being wasted. By investing this in properly designed PSIM and CSIM systems, one will achieve far better results and be able to trim manpower by 30% or more.

Problems are not solved by new information, but by filtering information we already have. Throwing more money and hardware at problems will not solve the issue, nor will more manpower; it is a combination of all of these components in line with operational requirements that will. We need to make better use of the existing technologies that collect data, bringing it together to constantly measure compliance and accountability.

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