An innovative surveillance system installed by Intrepid Security Solutions is helping the Co-operative Group combat warehouse theft and improve staff performance.
The Co-operative Group, which operates nearly 1,800 food stores throughout the UK, has introduced a Sentry SmartTrack CCTV system at its new National Distribution Centre in Coventry to detect internal theft.
Intrepid has mounted two separate SmartTracks onto the ceiling of the Coventry site. Together, the tracks are 225 metres long, sufficient to cover the 39 aisles inside the 300,000 square foot warehouse. Each SmartTrack has a concealed pan, tilt and zoom (PTZ) camera which glides silently along the track at speeds of up to 13 feet per second, enabling the Co-operative Group to swiftly position the cameras over any aisle to monitor for signs of suspicious activity.
Joe Swinbanks, regional loss prevention manager for logistics at the Co-operative Group, explains the benefits of SmartTrack. “Historically we have only used fixed cameras before and where we have identified areas of concern or where we have specific requirements to have cameras viewing a part of the building not normally covered, this has resulted in additional cost implications for manual redeployment of the equipment,” he says. “We had the opportunity to upgrade our systems by incorporating modern technology combined with a smarter way of operating”
Live images from the warehouse’s SmartTrack cameras are sent to a central monitoring station in Manchester run by remote monitoring specialists Visual Verification. Joe, meanwhile, along with the three senior managers based at the Coventry warehouse, can log onto office PCs and view camera footage themselves. He says: “We initially installed SmartTrack to assist in the prevention and detection of theft, but have found it has additional benefits which includes health and safety. It has proved to be a useful tool in helping to improve the overall performance of the distribution centre.”
The Co-operative Group has been so impressed with Intrepid and SmartTrack that Kelvin Wood, the Regional loss prevention manager for Southern England, plans to use the system at its new food warehouse in West Thurrock, due to open in January as part of the company’s five-year redevelopment of its entire logistics network. “We found Intrepid gave us excellent levels of service and proved to be very reliable throughout the project,” says Joe. “Installing such a long track on a ceiling could have caused lots of problems but Intrepid took just two and a half weeks to finish the installation, which was a remarkable achievement.”
