Just like our homes, today’s businesses are investing in elaborate alarm systems and integrated door security in order to protect their facilities, employees, and important business assets from forced entries, burglaries, or even something more nefarious.
A great starting point are proper security doors, which come in a variety of styles and have options for every budget. But that’s just the beginning. There’s much more you can do to add comprehensive, integrated entry point security throughout your entire facility.
Monitor and Manage Who’s Coming And Going With Access Control and Visitor Management
One of the best ways to prevent break-ins and burglaries from taking place in your facility is by using access control systems for the entry and exit doors in your building, and for locations throughout the facility.
An access control system is a type of physical security that can maximize the level of security in the current doors you have in your facility or in new door installations. It can keep track of who enters or exits physical spaces, but also monitors and manages where and when people have access to specific rooms or entry points. The system will prevent unauthorized individuals from entering a sensitive area while keeping track of authorized people and the time they enter (and leave) specific rooms.
What are Access Control Systems?
Even though access control is a rather broad term, it can apply to any control system that restricts access by location only to authorized people. This can include electrified doors, special guards or gates, turnstiles, and other systems for monitoring and controlling access to work, research, or production environments.
In a facility that has an access control system installed, people who are authorized to enter the building, or rooms within the building, make unlock requests using a form of credential. These credentials can include a plastic card, an app on their smartphone, or even their fingerprint. The unlock request is received by an automated system, which instantly communicates with an access control panel to find out if that person is allowed into the restricted area. If the individual is authorized to enter, the access control panel will automatically trigger the electrified door hardware to let them inside. It may also track when and where that person entered to follow personnel around a facility throughout the workday.
How Do Access Control Systems Help After an Incident?
One element of access control that is often not thought of is the system’s ability to store information that can help your business monitor who has access to your property at any given moment. If a business suffers property loss as a result of a crime, access control systems can also act as a starting point for an investigation by providing information about who may have had access to the property at the time of the crime.
Are Access Control Systems Right for My Business?
Here are some things to consider when deciding what access control system is right for you:
- How reliable can your access control system be? Access control has to rely on some form of an electronic network to operate throughout a building. The network could utilize the facility’s Wi-Fi or use NFC, or Bluetooth. The potential danger is that if you can’t maintain your network 100% of the time, your security efforts could be compromised. Internet hiccups and system outages are always a possibility. So this is something you’ll need to think about before choosing one kind of access control system over another.
- Will your access control system be compatible with any existing automation or security infrastructure? Automated security systems are helping more and more businesses keep things running smoothly, and most businesses have security cameras or intrusion control systems installed throughout the facility to keep staff safe. It isn’t uncommon for companies offering commercial access control to bundle other services into the package, such as video monitoring systems. So it’s important to think about how the various services and automated systems in your facility will (or won’t) work together.
- Do you have a garage and elevator that needs access control? If your facility has elevators, a garage for employee parking, or additional areas that could pose an unexpected intrusion hazard, you will want to consider these things when choosing an access control system. Don’t overlook these areas. You wouldn’t want unauthorized people getting in through unsecured areas because of some oversights.
- What sort of advanced features do you want your access control system to have? For example, more advanced access control systems provide support for gathering data, such as a powerful system that allows management or security personnel to track an employee’s exact location throughout the day. This system can also help with time logging and attendance tracking.
- Is the system you’re considering streamlined and user-friendly enough for non-technical employees? While most people working in a modern business will use computers or smartphones on a routine basis, you’ll want to make sure that the technology you introduce with your access control system isn’t too difficult for your employees to work with. Another consideration is the system’s convenience and ease of use. If gaining access to a restricted room or area is unnecessarily long or complicated, even for authorized individuals, you will be hearing about it!
Whether it’s door entry, card access, turnstiles, elevator control, gates, garages, or other barriers, LaMarco’s Access Control solutions provide the technology needed to deliver sophisticated security solutions for a range of applications from single sites and national networks, to globally distributed physical security management systems.
And, when you have to know who is in your building and for how long, you need a security system that identifies and monitors every person that steps foot on-premises. LaMarco’s Visitor Management solutions provide comprehensive tools to ensure only authorized individuals gain entry while maintaining visitor access — including EasyLobby Secure Visitor Management and IDenticard Systems — that can be newly deployed or easily integrated with the existing Access Control system.