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Ports & Airports Articles>
First Port of Call For Access Security in the Tyne
13 Apr 2005
The Port of Tyne is one of the UK’s busiest and most modern ports. Located on England’s North East coast, it offers a comprehensive handling service for forest products, steel and metals, cars, and bulk products.
The Port has 6.2 hectares of undercover storage within the secure port complex. This comprises 3.5 hectares of multi-user warehouses and sole occupancy warehouses, and 2.7 hectares of common-user, customs-approved transit sheds. These warehouses are connected to a warehouse management system, which tracks all pallet movements by use of bar codes and radio data terminals, resulting in substantial time and cost savings.
Making the choice
High levels of security are essential in an environment like this, with vast volumes of product being shifted on a daily basis. The challenge for the Port is to maintain security in a multi-user environment while allowing operations to run smoothly and quickly. The facility, for example, has to be a dynamic working environment as well as a safe place to store goods.
For several years, Bewator’s stand-alone access control systems have been used on each warehouse individually. This has allowed authorised personnel to gain access to controlled parts of the Port, using a combination of handheld cards and vehicle-mounted tags.
The system was installed by the Newcastle branch of Initial Fire and Security. The company was also responsible for many of the access control installations alongside the CCTV, Intruder and Fire Detection Systems. Initial finds that its customers requirements increasingly demand that every system is designed to integrate fully with every other function and system of a building or complex. With this in mind, the Port of Tyne system was installed from a design tailored to meet the unique requirements of the project.
The next stage in the evolution of the security facilities is a PC-based system to provide centralised monitoring and control of all access points throughout the Port. “We at Initial pride ourselves on meeting our customers needs with the right solution, first time, every time”, states Mike Bexton of Initial Fire and Security. “This application demanded central, integrated control of all these access points, as well as being reliable and easy to use. The Entro system that we implemented can cater for up to 512 access points and up to 12,000 users – and although the Port’s ultimate requirements are very considerable they are still well within the capacity of one Entro system.”
Installation
The integration of the access control points within the Port has begun with Warehouse 21, a 17,000m2 building, which could easily accommodate two and a half football pitches. This warehouse currently has a total of 15 access points and some 100 plus users. All of the users of the warehouse have been entered into the Bewator Entro system, and allocated access rights to areas where they have security clearance.
Most vehicles gain entry into the warehouse by pulling up to the entry point and presenting their magnetic card to a reader. However the onsite ‘tugs’, which are constantly going backwards and forwards within the complex, are fitted with vehicle-mounted tags, which speeds up access by requiring them only to slow down to allow the tags to be read, before proceeding. Using Entro, the Port’s Security and Warehousing departments are responsible for programming all cards and tags to provide them with individualised access rights; they are also able to monitor and record their daily use.
Over the coming months, the rest of the Port’s complex of warehouses will be integrated into the Bewator Entro PC system, controlling a total of some 1500 users and 50 access points.
Results
“Initial was able to take the existing systems, which incorporated access control points for some eight different warehouses and answer the customer requirement by integrating them into one of the largest single systems in the UK - certainly in terms of sheer physical size,” says Initial Fire and Security’s Mike Bexton. “The fact that an installation of this size can be controlled so easily from just one PC shows how versatile and sophisticated the Bewator Entro system is.”
Bewator
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