Best Dressed Security

Sep 1, 2004 12:00 PM

After 42 years as a leading producer of poultry in the Caribbean, Jamaica Broilers Group has embarked on a mission to modernize operations and increase efficiency — vital elements to compete internationally. Jamaica Broilers — which also produces and distributes fish, beef, animal feed, and farm supplies — markets its protein products under the brand name “Best Dressed.” The company's several-year push toward modernization has impacted all areas of the company, including security.

FARM-FRESH MODERNIZATION

Jamaica Broiler facilities are being outfitted with GE's Secure Perfect security system, as well as GE cameras, DVRs, readers and cards. The systems are installed by ModOffice, a Kingston, Jamaica-based systems integrator.

The company first called ModOffice when moving its corporate headquarters from the capital city of Kingston into the surrounding countryside. Jamaica Broilers operates on more than 3,000 acres, encompassing farms across the island of Jamaica, as well as 14 subsidiaries from Tifton, Ga., to Georgetown, Cayman Islands. Although installation of high-tech security systems is cost-prohibitive for many of the subsidiaries, security chief Captain John Richards imagines the day when all the farms will be protected by advanced systems.

“Some farms may not have the need for the access control system,” he says. “What they could have are the cameras and the motion detection system. As the price of security guards goes up, it becomes necessary to substitute technology.”

As in most industries, economic pressures drive the move toward more security. “One of my major goals has been to reduce the cost of security at Jamaica Broilers and to make sure the money earmarked for technology is well spent. The World Trade Organization is introducing new rules in 2005 to liberalize trade and make trading among countries more open and free,” Richards explains. “Currently the poultry industry is protected by a tariff; this tariff is in place to give us an opportunity to reduce our costs and increase efficiency so that when 2005 comes, we can compete and stay in business.

“I've had to rationalize security, reduce the numbers and replace bodies with security systems, and to ensure that we get maximum efficiency out of our guards so we don't have two guards doing what one could do — if his job were organized properly, if he were supervised properly, and if he had technology monitoring his movements.”

With the new security systems, Richards has been able to reduce his guard team by 25 percent — a significant improvement when one guard around the clock costs $1 million a year in Jamaican currency ($17,000 US). To monitor the remaining guards, Richards uses a SilverGuard guard tour program from Brooklyn Computer Systems. It requires the guards to touch a battery-operated wand to buttons around the facility, thereby recording their routes.

Jamaica Broilers' push toward efficiency has also included investing heavily in the company's computer network.

“The network is the backbone of the security system,” Richards explains. “The original system was DOS-based. A lot of it was disparate — many standalone systems working by themselves. At the end of the day, when the information needed to be collated, a secretary would call all the subsidiaries and compile a report.”

In May, Jamaica Broilers adopted Microsoft's Axapta. “This enterprise software allows us to pull together our accounts, inventory, sales and human resources, and it all sits in one database,” Richards says. “It has made accountability easier and it should make us more efficient.”

RELOCATING THE CORPORATE HOME

If an agricultural corporation is expected to cling to tradition, Jamaica Broilers is the exception. “The management here is certainly not afraid of new technology,” Richards says. “They embrace it, they implement it, and it works. We are always modernizing our factories and making new products.” Rather than merely focusing on raw chickens, lately Jamaica Broilers has successfully entered the prepared food market with pre-seasoned meat dishes.

The new corporate headquarters was the perfect vehicle for experimenting with innovative technologies. In some ways, a move to the countryside could only improve the security of the corporate headquarters. Some areas of Kingston have high crime, and some of it inevitably spilled into the company's urban facilities. In the verdant plains of the Jamaica countryside, crime was less of an overt threat, although security systems would still be necessary to protect the company leadership working at headquarters.

Adding to the challenge, Jamaica Broilers President/CEO Robert Levy requested that security be almost invisible for the sprawling company campus. “Our president wanted the facility to have a wide, open, welcoming feel,” Richards says. “He also wanted an old feel, so the windows and doors look like they have been there a long time. It is a very traditional old Jamaican look. But this is a group office where the president, a number of vice-presidents and other senior executives work, and we have to secure the area, so we wanted to put the technology in place in such a way that it is almost unnoticeable.”

To meet the request, Richards adopted his usual approach, choosing to substitute electronic systems for security officers. The Secure Perfect system governs GE DVRs, readers, cards and motion detectors, as well as GE, Samsung, and Silent Witness cameras.

Employees arrive at a barrier gate where they present their cards to GE Model 1100 Proximity Perfect long-range readers. Employees also use their cards, produced by Jamaica Broilers on an Ultra Magicard printer, to enter their offices. Visitors interact with the one guard at the gate who then contacts the person they intend to visit. The guard also opens the gate for departing visitors. CCTV cameras view license plates of entrants and focus on the contents of departing trucks.

The topography of the area governs some security precautions. “I refer to it as the corporate resort,” Richards explains, describing the corporate headquarters. “It has these low ranch fences, a lovely beautiful lawn that looks like a golf course; it has huge beautiful trees and, nestled between them, a lake with crocodiles. It really does look wide open like the kind of place you go for vacation, but if you were to jump the fence, you would break a photobeam.”

When unwanted visitors break these criss-crossed infrared photobeams, generated by the RedNet perimeter detection system from Optex Security Enclosures, an alarm notifies the guard. If the intrusion occurs at night, motion detection lights are also activated. In the guard room, the officer's screen breaks into four views — a snapshot of whatever caused the break, a live picture of where the intruder is, and the views from the two adjacent cameras. This information is recorded on a Kalatel DVR. The offices are also guarded by motion detectors at night.

SELECTING THE SYSTEM

The entire system is administered by Dell PCs at the main office. Other facilities protected by the security system, such as the feed mill or processing plant, can also be viewed at this station.

“It's much easier to administer from a central location and, because we are spread literally all across Jamaica, we needed a system that could work across the network,” Richards says.

The system also delivers concrete results during incident investigations — including specific information and clear pictures.

The system has worked as expected, Richards says. “We have had losses at the cattle farm on the same property. But in the front of the property, where the system is (installed), we have had almost no losses. The opportunity isn't there because the doors are always locked and the cameras are always running. If people want to steal, they go somewhere else.”

Richards also values the automation aspects of the security system. “These systems turn themselves off and on as they are scheduled to do. The only place where employees have to interface is when they access doors using their cards.

“You can set up the time schedules so that you don't have to remind the guards to arm or disarm systems,” he continues. “The way this system works, it doesn't need human intervention at all. Having set up the parameters for the system, it just works.”

Staff support for the system came quickly, Richards says. “At the processing plant, the staff clamored until they got a system like we have here (at the main office).”

“The big story is the before and after effects,” he adds. “What happened before is a lot of petty loses and the inability to track who went where. What happens now is very few losses, the ability to know who goes where and to control peoples' movements. We have almost forgotten that we used to lose keys, to lock ourselves out, to have to replace broken locks.”

FOR THE RECORD…

About the companies

For information, circle the Reader Service number (listed below) or visit securitysolutions.com

Brooklyn Computer Systems	5
GE	6
Kalatel	7
Optex	8
Samsung	9
Silent Witness	10
Ultra Electronics	11

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© 2008 Penton Media Inc.

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