Disposables UK Group is a family-owned business, operating for 26 years, based in Meltham, near Huddersfield in the UK. The company manufactures and distributes paper disposables and cleaning and hygiene products for the ‘away from home’ market.
Disposables UK Group was the first UK paper converter in the away from home market to gain EU Ecolabel certification on its flagship Bay West range of washroom dispensers and paper products. The Bay West products were also chosen for supply in certain areas of the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games.
In July of 2013, the Yorkshire based Group took a step nearer to achieving its ambitious five year growth plan with a move to a larger site in Meltham, near Huddersfield. The business, which is one of the largest employers in Meltham, has invested £1.7m in new machinery as part of a strategy to double its current £16m turnover to £30m by 2018.
Prior to the move, the company spread its manufacturing, distribution and administration across four separate sites. As part of this consolidation process, Rob Saunders, engineering and QHSE manager for Disposables UK Group began evaluating the options for a new CCTV system to protect the enlarged combined site.
As Saunders explains, “With the sizeable investment we had made in the new facility, it was essential that our security systems should be comprehensive and highly integrated across CCTV and access control. As we were putting in a fresh system, it allowed us to build a security platform that was both fit for purpose on day one while allowing us to grow as and when needed.”
The site includes a 7,500 sq ft modern office facility including a state of the art reception, offices, training room, and product display areas. The manufacturing facility has been fully refitted with energy efficient lighting in an area that encompasses goods inwards, production and finished product areas totalling 150,000 sq ft. The manufacturing facility incorporates new fully automated production and packaging lines, allowing Disposables UK to manufacture quality products at prices to meet current and future market demands.
As a site requiring access up to 24 hours a day, Saunders needed a CCTV system which would remain constantly vigilant but not constantly flooding the network and storage servers with mostly static video content. Alongside security, the CCTV system would also act as another pair of watchful eyes on machinery running within the site and to overview health and safety procedures. To this end, high resolution imagery was deemed a particularly useful feature for the new system.
To provide expert support for the project, Saunders contacted AML CCTV for design, implementation and maintenance services around the access control, monitoring and security systems needed to secure the new site. AML CCTV is a highly regarded local installer that has successfully implemented complete networking and security systems for several large local businesses and proposed an integrated access control and CCTV system that met the 24/7 nature of the site.
Based on the requirements for efficient network usage, high resolution video and reliable operations; AML recommended a MOBOTIX based solution. “The demonstrations we had on the MOBOTIX CCTV and the impressive reference sites ticked all the boxes for us,” explains Saunders. Luke Holland and Chris Philpot, two senior engineers from AML worked closely with the Disposables UK technical team across an intensive installation. “AML had the technical knowledge, flexibility and level of professionalism that we needed to get the job done in what was a challenging four month project,” explains Saunders, “it is fair to say, that without their expertise, we simply would not have hit our deadline.”
Monitoring the entire facility including full external coverage required just 28 MOBOTIX cameras running off a dedicated fibre backbone network. The relatively low number of cameras required to monitor the site was due to the high resolution imagery offered by MOBOTIX and hemispheric technology which allowed a wider area to be monitored with a single camera.
MOBOTIX is the pioneer of a decentralised approach to CCTV which simplifies installation and operational considerations while improving overall security and reliability. In this decentralization architecture, all image processing, recording logic and decisions are made in the camera itself. This is in complete contrast to most other CCTV systems, where the camera typically has no real intelligence and relies on decision making and image processing taking place at ’the core‘ of the network via centralised software or DVR. As the camera can store video within the device and only needs to send video to a central repository at the discretion of the operator, Disposables UK did not need complex and expensive control room servers and network video recorders.
In addition, AML has integrated a Paxton door entry system and electronically controlled access gates that are all fully covered by MOBOTIX cameras using MxControlCentre monitoring and incident indexing software. “One of the key advantages of MOBOTIX for us is that we can use mobile devices such as our iOS tablets to view images from any camera while both on or off site,” explains Saunders, “Not only do we use the system for 24 hour a day security monitoring but it also allows us to monitor our manufacturing and logistics processes in real time.” Saunders points to activities such as recording the state of pallets as they load onto vehicles as a great example of how the high resolution CCTV also assists with maintaining quality control.
“The MxControlCentre software is incredibly easy to use and because the systems only records on movement, we need only a minimal amount of disk storage and the additional built-in camera storage means that the system will keep recording even in the event of a network problem,” says Saunders.
Since its implementation, the system has performed flawlessly and Saunders commends the team from AML for its professionalism, “They have been second to none and we have appreciated their flexibility and ‘get the job’ done attitude which has been vital in delivering a successful project,” he concludes.
