Konica Minolta Partners with SAFR to Enhance Security and Access Control at Major European Factory
A large manufacturer in the Czech Republic found itself plagued with fraudulent actions from a variety of individuals who, as contractors, were not official employees of the company. The factory employs several tens of thousands workers across two sites. The employees include a mix of both permanent and temporary/contract workers. Access to the site was managed through turnstiles and badge readers. Management discovered that badges were routinely being handed over to non-employees by staff who were effectively “out-sourcing” their work to others. In addition, some these individuals were engaged in fraudulent activities such as stealing goods from the factory site and reselling them.
Beyond loss due to internal shrink, having unauthorized and untrained workers on the factory floor represented a potential large risk to the organization. From damage to the production machines and products themselves, to liability issues if these individuals should cause injury to themselves or others, something needed to be done to strengthen access control security.
Biometrics to the rescue
“Biometrics were chosen as the best way to
enhance access security at the factory without a
complete retrofit of existing systems. SAFR was
very easy to work with and provided the best
results together with the best overall value for
this crucial installation.”
— Roman Riedl, Key Account manager, at Telmo a.s.
The factory management team reached out to Telmo a.s., a regional security systems integrator, to enhance the security and access control measures at the factory sites. After studying the issue, Telmo a.s. engaged with Konica Minolta CZ to help manage the project and develop a workable solution. To shore up facility access, the team decide to deploy a facial recognition system that would notify the security team whenever a badge was used by someone other than the badge owner. After a thorough vetting of facial recognition vendors, SAFR from Real Networks was chosen for its high accuracy and reliability within a real-live environment, the ease of integration with its API and minimal compute footprint, and the support, reputation, and reliability of the SAFR team.
Mobotix cameras were deployed at the entrances and equipped with SAFR facial recognition. The integration between the card readers and SAFR was provided by IPLOG PLC device produced by METEL s.r.o. company. METEL developed special integration sw running in their IPLOG for communication in between card readers and SAFR API. By simply importing existing employee images and ID information into the SAFR database, the system was ready to work immediately. To ensure compliance with GDPR regulations, the company’s DPO (Data Protection Officer) worked with the legal team and local data protection authorities. Employees were asked to “opt-in” to having their existing images moved into the SAFR database for enhanced security. The system is deployed entirely on-premises, with all employee information stored on local, company-owned servers.
“We used our Mobotix s74 cameras to capture the best image for facial recognition purposes in varying lighting conditions and their special design made them suitable for installation in turnstiles” said Martin Jahoda, Head of VSS BDM at Konika Minolta CZ. “The SAFR system was easy to integrate with and didn’t require powerful equipment to run on, keeping overall costs down.”
Today, when an employee swipes a badge to enter the factory, SAFR is used to confirm that the badge belongs to the person who swipes it. SAFR is not currently used to control the turnstile itself, so if the person who tries to get access is not the owner of the badge, access will still be granted. However, every time a mismatch is detected a record is made into a report which is issued daily to the security team. The security team will then discuss the situation with relevant employees based on the report. The two factory sites have a total of 40 camera channels that are managed by a Genetec Omnicast VMS. In addition to access control, SAFR facial recognition is integrated within Omnicast allowing security operators to perform forensic search utilizing SAFR metadata to quickly locate clips containing persons of interest.
Results
On the first day of the new SAFR deployment, 50 out of 1000 persons were detected illegally using a badge.
Suffice to say, the management team is very satisfied with the results and increased security at the factory. The reduced shrink and fraud is expected to pay for the system in short order.
“We’re very happy that SAFR was chosen to solve this challenging access control problem,” said SAFR. “Our ability to deliver an important solution that prevents widespread fraud while satisfying GDPR compliance requirements is a perfect example of the utility and unique benefits of biometric-based security.”
