SMART SOLUTION TO ACCESS CONTROL

Jun 1, 2001 12:00 PM, By RANDY SOUTHERLAND

We had to do a high-speed assessment quickly. We had to understand the full requirements from the tenant and the agency. We did 90 to 95 percent of the inventory and assessment in less than 45 days.

In the waning months of 1999, the state of New Jersey — like the rest of the modern world — was locked in the final race to beat the Y2K bug. Engineers worked feverishly to bring their computers up to compliance and avoid the threat of high-tech meltdown.

At the same time, New Jersey officials saw an opportunity to create something more than just an internal clock that could read dates in the new millennium. Since their computer systems had to be modernized anyway, they decided it was time to move forward with another project that held the promise of great benefit for New Jersey and its constituents.

“As a separate project, the state was considering a system of smart cards,” says Bill Roe, vice president for engineering at Exton, Pa.-based Compass Technologies, which provided much of the hardware and software for the project. “The idea was that state employees, and residents who receive state assistance, would have one card. Since they were replacing the access system anyway, wouldn't it be smart to have the access control system be the first leg of this Access New Jersey system?”

The New Jersey governor's office agreed, and embarked on one of the largest smart card projects in the country. The cards would first be used to provide access to state-owned and leased buildings across the state.

A FRAGMENTED SYSTEM

In the late 1990s, the issue of access control and security was strictly a local affair — right down to the individual building. Each state facility, in fact, had one or more systems, and only a few were centrally monitored.

In 1995, the state commissioned Wickford Group, a security consulting firm in Cherry Hill, N.J., to analyze its needs and to recommend how best to upgrade the system.

“One recommendation was that we should have a single consolidated card access system to unite the fragmented parts of the previous system,” recalls Frank Fuzo, the state's manager of building maintenance and operations. “One building might have had two or three systems in it. It was also suggested that it be under the control of one organization or one unit.”

The state considered the suggestions seriously and decided that the Y2K upgrade was the perfect time to install the new system. Compass Technologies had recently acquired the G. S. Butts Inc. line of security products that were already in use in some state facilities. While access control was the first consideration, it was not to be the only one.

“At that point, the treasurer's office decided that, just in case there was going to be a consolidated system, they wanted to add different items to this system, such as health benefits information,” says Fuzo.

They also wanted the card to work as a proximity card, without the common touch technology found in most smart cards.

“So we had to go to a contactless smart card,” explains Roe. “We looked at the various protocols, and we talked to various manufacturers. Although smart cards had been around, the contactless smart cards were not prevalent yet.”

Working with the project's prime contractor, Gaithersburg, Md.-based Quanta Systems Corp., the state settled on the Mifare-standard smart cards and readers manufactured by AmeriSys, Quebec, Canada.

After deciding on the technology, the team of suppliers and integrators faced the daunting task of installing the infrastructure to link together the first 36 buildings. They had to issue as many as 30,000 cards with nearly 600 access levels.

“It was an incredible undertaking, logistically,” explains Todd Dieterly, project manager and senior systems engineer for the project, and executive vice president and COO of Mt. Airy, Md.-based TDK Systems Group Inc. “We had to do a high-speed assessment quickly. We had to understand the full requirements from the tenant and the agency. Is this a normal point of access? How often is a given entrance used? We did 90 to 95 percent of the inventory and assessment in less than 45 days.”

The project also had to cope with the realities of state budgeting. The state's own network was already overburdened, and funding didn't exist for the installation of high-speed T1 lines, so integrators had to rely on phone lines to link the system together.

“We wound up — because of the scope and cost of the project — using existing local area and wide area networks,” says Roe. “They were in some cases good, and in some overburdened. Working with the state, we were able to tweak the system.”

They modified to the software to increase bandwidth capability and make optimum use of the existing infrastructure.

“One of the things we did was to consolidate the polling stations,” explains Roe. “In our system, any workstation can also act as a polling station. So you can connect Intelligent Field Panels (IFP) to polling workstations, and they don't have to come back to the headend. They can actually go to any workstation. We're able to use the local area network over to the workstation, where you can dial out and do what you need to do.”

INTEGRATED TECHNOLOGY

TDK installed 14 workstations, along with two servers, to run the system that connected nearly 600 smart card readers to a network of Compass' Intelligent Field Panels. The central station in Trenton's Justice Complex monitors approximately 5,000 alarms that cross the Compass system.

“We started with many buildings in many locations that, in almost all cases, had stand-alone systems,” says Dieterly. “Our task was to tie them all together to a central platform. That platform did not exist.”

The system integrators not only had to create the system, but because of the massive nature of the undertaking, they found that technology had to be adapted as the realities of the job became apparent.

“We worked through a number of firmware changes with Compass,” says Dieterly. “Things that might have worked well in a test in a three-building configuration over a local area network, fail in some cases across a wide area network with 36 buildings. We spent many hours working with Compass, identifying system anomalies — things that were bugs in hardware or the firmware or the software.”

Compass produced nearly a dozen software upgrades to adapt the system to the needs of New Jersey state government. During the process, they incorporated a number of changes into the products that have since become standard.

In the beginning, for example, AmeriSys did not provide an outdoor enclosure for its readers. The system has to regulate access to the state's parking facilities for employees, contractors and other vendors. These readers had to be protected from weather in order to function properly. TDK's staff located another manufacturer's housing unit, which the Canadian company then incorporated into its readers as a standard offering.

Since the initial phase of the project, more buildings and personnel have been added to the system. A total of 41 facilities have come on line so far, and more are being added each month.

“Whenever we build a new building, it is designed with the use of this system in mind,” says Fuzo. “Whenever we go into a new lease, the state agency that is going to be the tenant determines which system we put in there. Nine times out of 10, it's this system.”

Access control and alarms are now monitored from a central location in Trenton. The New Jersey State Police, which has the task of protecting state facilities, provides the monitoring and can dispatch officers to trouble spots either from its own agency or a local jurisdiction.

The system is charged with handling a growing number of users and monitoring a staggering number of activities. More than half a million transactions per day are monitored between cards and readers, alarms, and checks on door status.

The centralized system also allows for easy card replacement. An employee can report a lost card to his department's “card coordinator,” who communicates the information to the central office in Trenton. The lost card is deactivated and a new one issued in a matter of days.

In addition, employees who transfer from one agency to another can have their access levels and locations changed in the system without needing a new access card.

“The way the system is set up, every activity is logged through the database,” says Tom Clugston, chief of the Security, Fire and Emergency Services Bureau. “So we're talking about millions of activities going across telephone lines into our headend. It's a very busy system. If you're not managing it properly, and backing up properly, then you're bound for problems.”

The system also requires extensive personnel training in order to make it work properly.

“Right now we're in the midst of bringing the staff up to the appropriate level,” says Clugston. “Because we have to rely heavily on the State Police to monitor the operation, there's training across department lines.”

According to Clugston, the state also grants autonomy to local agencies to decide what access levels employees receive.

“My philosophy is I don't dictate security to agencies,” he explains. “If an agency decides that they want a specific person to have access to a building 24 hours a day, seven days a week, I would not question that. We're not in the business of telling an agency when they can go in their office. It gives much more control to the agency.”

While the local managers have the final word on who gets access and when, his department has embarked on an education program to prevent the creation of too many access levels.”

ONE CARD

While these smart cards are currently being used only for access, the infrastructure is now in place to add a host of other functions. Some day, for example, employees may carry their insurance information on the card, allowing them, for example, to obtain prescriptions at a local pharmacy.

Expanding the functionality of the cards is a step-by-step process. The next goal is to transform the cards into IDs, using a video badging system that incorporates photo, signature and state seals. This process will give employees one less item to keep up with.

FOR THE RECORD

ABOUT THE COMPANIES

For information, please circle the appropriate Reader Service number (listed below) on one of the Reader Service cards in the issue or visit infoLINK at www.securitysolutions.com.

AmeriSys	10
Compass Technologies	11
Quanta Systems Corp	12
TDK Systems	13
Wickford Group	14

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Randy Southerland is an
Atlanta-based writer and regular
contributor to Access Control &
Security Systems Integration.

Want to use this article? Click here for options!
© 2008 Penton Media Inc.

This month in Access Control

• Opening Up About Door Closers
• An Enterprise Approach
• The Framework For Open Systems
• On A Higher Plane
• More from April's issue