28 January 2021 - Lara Velasco
Featured in: Product information and OPTEX tech tips, Market Insights, Intrusion detection
Warehouses represent a critical part of any company’s business operation and assets. Although their size, content and purpose can vary enormously, they all store goods of value either financially, or to keep a vital production line operational. Similarly, but on an even greater scale, distribution centres represent huge logistical hubs, with fleets of vehicles often parked overnight, fully loaded and ready to depart the next morning.
Both warehouses and distribution centres can be a popular target for criminals. While the threat can sometimes come from within (referred to as ‘Shrinkage’), the greater danger and risk of damage is caused by external threats, for example individuals trespassing onto site to access parked vehicles, their fuel tank and loads, or to intrude the building itself to steal goods.
These common external threats are often planned and usually take place during holidays or weekends when there is less chance of being caught (at least in theory). But the sheer size of some of these facilities, and their 24/7 operation, means they are susceptible to attack any time of the day or night. Vandalism also represents another common risk, which can also cause great damage to the installations and have knock-on effects on revenue.
Protecting the perimeter to these facilities or high value targets can be challenging. As e-commerce continues to grow, distribution centres are getting bigger and in many cases have perimeters of several kilometers!
Due to the sheer size of their buildings, they are often situated in remote locations, which presents an additional security challenge and makes the choice of an accurate detection system to avoid false alarms due to wildlife and weather changes critical. In many cases, these false alarms can lead to more thefts as the intruders may be aware the system often fails, and the company is likely to ignore some of the alarms. Fences and walls are the most common physical security solution, but are often not enough to deter an intrusion, as criminals can climb over or use unsecured gaps around the gated areas to access the site.
As with any intrusion, time is critical and the security staff will need to locate the point of intrusion quickly and accurately. Fibre optic technology can be utilised to protect the fence line or wall creating zones up to 100m or 200m long which can help to pinpoint where the intrusion is taking place.
Fibre optic technology also allows the ability to identify whether the intruder is climbing over, cutting through the fence or drilling on a wall. Fibre optic sensors can trigger lights and audio warnings which would deter most intruders before they have accessed the perimeter. Due to the nature of what it detects and how it does it, the fibre optic system could be on during working hours and out of hours. This would detect anyone trying to cut a hole in the fence during the day to prepare an attack at night.
A further security layer restricting access or protection for the perimeter can be provided with infrared (IR) beams and beam towers, which running parallel to the perimeter line can give a second warning in the event of unauthorised intruders accessing via the fence line or detect people on site moving too close to the perimeter line. IR beams work as point to point detection up to 200m and would trigger the alarm if anyone was walking through them or blocking the beams. One common application within logistics environments is to alert people within the perimeter who approach the fence with the intention to throw goods over it. IR beams are available wireless, reducing installation costs and providing a very flexible solution to protect hard-to-wire areas and remote or temporary logistic centres.
REDSCAN LiDAR technology has the ability to be mounted vertically and horizontally, protecting with an invisible laser wall or plane and can be used in a variety of applications providing very accurate detection and providing the X,Y coordinates so the exact location of the intrusion can be identified. LiDAR can protect gated access to the perimeter ensuring there are no vulnerable gaps or access through blind spots while vehicles travel in and out. It can also be added to the fencing to ensure any attempts of climbing over the fence or wall are not missed. It also allows for a pre-warning area to be created to alert of anyone loitering or approaching the fence line. The target object can be defined by size and speed of movement, and it is therefore easy to ignore most wildlife, birds, rodents and cats which could be a major cause of false alarms for other technologies.
OPTEX sensors can be integrated with lights, audio warnings and CCTV, which in most scenarios will deter the intrusion.
There is no single solution to prevent warehouse theft. It takes a combination of technologies and security systems to provide integral protection of warehouse and logistics environments. That said, the protection of the perimeter line with sensors is critical to get a pre-alert of unauthorised persons approaching the perimeter line. Integrated with security cameras, the sensors can give the security staff the real-time view of the situation so they can assess the best security response.