On The Job

Aug 1, 2005 12:00 PM, BY MICHAEL FICKES

Early this summer, a man went on a shooting spree in downtown Atlanta. Upon receiving the news, Glade Johnson, president of Atlanta-based Conquest Protective Services LLC, logged onto a Web site and issued encrypted alerts to his Atlanta clients as well as his site supervisors and all his officers.

Using a system called OneVision, he sent a single message: Change the security level from green to red, which means lock down the building. At each of a handful of locations, Conquest supervisors in turn delivered the message to patrolling officers, along with instructions about how to carry out a lockdown. Step-by-step instructions for lockdowns had previously been stored in the OneVision system. As officers accomplished their tasks, their reports flowed from handheld devices carried by the officers to the site supervisors' computers to the OneVision Web site.

Throughout the crisis, Johnson, his site supervisors and Conquest's Atlanta clients knew exactly where security stood at their properties. Technology has long been a tool to help guard companies and clients manage security officers effectively. Today, however, guard tour technology is moving forward by consolidating equipment carried by officers into fewer devices, interfacing and managing officers during rounds and even providing explicit instructions for officers confronted with security challenges.

Reducing the equipment burden

This month, Poway, Calif.-based TISCOR released TourWatch XT, a guard tour management system featuring radio frequency identification (RFID) technology. The TISCOR system works with Nokia mobile phones and provides officers with feature-rich software and a smart device that helps pare back the amount of equipment patrolling officers must carry. The Nokia phone combines a cellular phone, a two-way radio, a camera and a guard tour wand into one device.

When officers on patrol scan RFID tags, text appears on the phone's screen and asks questions related to the location. Data moves across a wireless connection back to the home office in real-time, thus freeing the memory in the device to collect additional information.

The new TourWatch XT is one of many current systems that handle reports and log systems, save hours of paperwork every month and keep officers out on patrol in the process, enhancing the security of the facilities they protect.

Managing security officers with the Web

The Web-based OneVision system used by Conquest during the shooting incident in Atlanta comes from Forgehouse LLC of Norcross, Ga.

Currently used by only a handful of guard services and clients, OneVision has received solid reviews. “The system revolutionizes our ability to handle building problems — from break-ins or other serious security matters to air conditioning problems and power outages,” says Morris Harrison, president of RB Management Services Inc., a Washington D.C.-based property management firm that handles a portfolio of 58 properties.

Conquest, which Johnson purchased from the owners of Forgehouse four years ago, has been using OneVision for a little over a year. Just over half of the firm's nine clients have signed on with the service.

Not all clients will benefit from OneVision, Johnson says. The system is best for large complex sites, where patrolling officers must record their activities. A construction site monitored only after hours by one or two officers may not need a comprehensive management system. In addition, if a site cannot provide Internet access, OneVision cannot be used.

For clients that can benefit from the system, Johnson says OneVision makes for closer coordination between a client and a guard company, while enhancing the supervision and management of officers.

To set up the system, the guard company and client work together to categorize potential security problems. Issues are ranked numerically from one to five, with five being the highest priority. The team establishes policies, procedures and checklists for each issue. The procedures and checklists related to the policies go into the system, and the data is maintained on a server managed at Forgehouse but which can be customized as necessary. Tours are then established for officers.

The set-up can establish a variety of chores for patrolling officers, from basic security tasks to looking for maintenance problems and safety issues.

On tour, OneVision functions much like a conventional guard tour system. Officers swipe handheld PDAs at preset points and answer questions designed to ensure that procedures have been followed.

Supervisors can check on patrolling officers by logging into the Forgehouse Web site and tracking their tours — during the day or after hours from home. “After a while, our officers came to realize that someone might check on them during the evening and overnight,” Johnson says. “So they are motivated to do what they are supposed to do on a timely basis.”

After a tour, officers download a log of their activities. The Forgehouse-based server uses the log information to generate reports about the tours, flagging whatever the patrolling officers have missed or done wrong. Supervisors follow up on serious breaches or troubling patterns.

When a security problem arises, however, OneVision begins to manage the officers on the scene. Suppose a patrolling officer encounters a broken door. He or she would use the handheld to create an incident report by selecting the proper codes for the location and incident type. A PDA message will note that this is a high-priority category and ask the officer if he or she really wants to do this. If the answer is yes, checklists of procedures appear on the screen. Depending on the client, the procedures set for particular incidents may differ. Whatever they are, the officer carries out the tasks and enters each completed task into the handheld device.

Meanwhile, OneVision has notified the site security supervisor of the incident, and he or she has notified the client and others as specified in the procedures and also has begun to monitor activities of officers as they carry out their assigned responsibilities.

“We used to do all this with memos, faxes, phone calls, and site inspections,” Johnson says. “Now we can handle these kinds of management tasks over the Internet.”

SHARE YOUR STORY…

This page offers an opportunity for readers to share management lessons they have learned and to provide other helpful information to their peers in the industry. To offer suggestions, or to contribute to this page, contact Larry Anderson at (770) 618-0118 or e-mail landerson@primediabusiness.com

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