Morrisons, retailer of the Year for 2008, is the UK’s fourth largest supermarket chain. As part of its plan to take on its competitors and to increase its market share, currently around 12% of the UK grocery market, it is opening approximately 40 new stores mostly in the South East of England. In order to service a large number of these new stores it has recently opened a new 1 million sq ft (92,900 sq m) Distribution Centre at G Park in Sittingbourne, Kent, close to the M2 motorway.
Distribution warehouses can be difficult environments for achieving effective security with high storage racking and multiple loading bays, and a warehouse of this size employing around 1000 staff presented a significant challenge for both security and health and safety issues. The use of CCTV plays an important part in supporting the role of the security department, as well as providing critical evidential footage when investigating accidents or potential breaches of health and safety procedures in the warehouse. Morrisons recognised that deploying a traditional CCTV system along with the necessary infrastructure to provide effective coverage of such a large site would prove cost prohibitive and unwieldy to manage. They turned to security providers Intrepid Security for a solution. Intrepid already has a well established reputation in the logistics sector with a number of major retailers for providing a fit for purpose, reliable and cost effective CCTV system through its mobile Smart Track technology.
Developed by SentryVision® in the United States, SmartTrack is the only travelling camera system offering the option of both one and two pan, tilt and zoom (PTZ) camera carriages that travel along a ceiling or wall mounted aluminum rail. The SmartTrack camera system is particularly suited for the distribution warehouse environment and provides excellent coverage of large areas because it offers unobstructed, continuous tracking of people and events, with a capability to provide flexible coverage of picking aisles and loading bays. With a camera range of up to 200 metres, a single track can achieve what would otherwise require a large number of fixed or independent positioned PTZs.
SmartTrack also offers software features including programmable inputs to direct the camera to respond to open doors, as well as other vulnerable areas linked to motion detectors, or burglar and fire alarms. Some users have also employed SmartTrack to monitor areas where staff work alongside potentially dangerous machinery to ensure there is compliance with on-site safety rules. The versatile system can be programmed with up to six automatic tours and 60 carriage presets per tour. There is an added bonus in that because of its unique opaque housing, the coverage and flexibility achieved when employing SmartTrack can save the cost of installing temporary covert cameras for later identified problem areas.
SmartTrack operates either as a stand alone system or integrated with other CCTV products including conventional PTZ and fixed cameras. Sentry software engineers have built interfaces to integrate SmartTrack with most of the world’s leading CCTV brands and it can be operated using a conventional CCTV joy stick console or a wireless PDA and can be monitored remotely over the internet.
Morrisons joins ASDA, Sainsbury, Tesco and Boots amongst others in acknowledging that the SmartTrack solution delivers better functionality and value for money than conventional CCTV systems when equipping large format stores or warehouses.
Intrepid Security
Tel: 0208 893 9922
Email: info@intrepidsecurity.com
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