Access Control: It's Not Your Father's Door Chain Anymore..

Access Control: It's Not Your Father's Door Chain Anymore

The year is 1987. David Beckham was just sprouting hair in new places and you could still get a cup of coffee for less than a pound. A simpler time. You arrive for work and, as usual, you are greeting by a uniformed guard named Carl sporting a thick moustache and an attitude. You sign-in for the day, a ritual that barely registers with you. It just is. Maybe you flash a badge kept tethered around your neck, the company's logo printed on the nylon ribbon.

This is state-of-the-art plant security, and woe to the guy who tries to crash this party. In a rare moment of conversation - this guy would make his own mother flash a badge to get past him, even if just to use the bathroom - Carl mentions a wave of new security systems coming along, something about cards with magnetic strips that you slide through a sensor rather than signing in manually. Keypads into which you punch your very own personal code to unlock the door. Very high tech. Carl's worried, his days as the guardian of the employee gate are numbered. What's next, fingerprint readers and James Bond-inspired fingerprint and retina scanners? Yeah, like that's gonna happen.

Cut to present day, with over 20 years of access control evolution under digital belts. Carl's deepest fears have been realized (he's now retired after a decade of walking the perimeter on the night shift, ever since that blasted card reader system was installed), and yet not even he has a clue as to what's transpired in the field of access control and facility security. Because while everything he'd predicted had come to pass, what he didn't know back in 1987 was that access control would one day seamlessly integrate with the company's data infrastructure, the very same network that tended to tasks such as human resource management, using software that did not yet exist. Welcome to new age of access control, which not only monitors the comings and goings of employees, vendors and guests - not to mention intruders - but also integrates with complex video surveillance systems to record every movement on the premises to digital storage.

Add all that to the fact that these systems are also capable of managing one-off events with area-specific optimization , as well as printing new badges and issuing all manner of reports that can be analysed with a view toward improved efficiency, and you have the security solution of every security guard's - and manager's -- dreams.

While the hardware of access control has certainly evolved over the years, it is the software that has taken on positively futuristic proportions. What once was a custom-programmed nightmare to install and maintain, today's systems are easily configured, training is fast and efficient, with virtually unlimited flexibility and ease of maintenance going forward. And with linkage to ultimate profitability through risk management and efficiency, ROI is fast and highly visible to management.

As a result, managers have a new and significant appreciation of the role of access control, not only in terms of safeguarding their people and assets - which they now understand to be a critical part of the income statement - but also in managing human resources for optimal effectiveness. As for those security guards? Well, today they are the people running and maintaining these state-of-the-art access control systems, with a more visible and valuable role in facility operations than ever before. With or without a uniform and badge, James Bond, and even Carl himself, would be proud.

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