 |
| Marwood now has the ISONAS hardware and Crystal Matrix software controlling 13 access points |
Marwood Metal Fabrication Limited is a multinational, automotive stamping and assembly company who operates on a one square mile campus consisting of four factories in the southern territory of Ontario, Canada. Henry Peters, the IT director at Marwood, began his search for an access control system in the summer of 2011. The system was recommended to him by long-time ISONAS integrator, Steven Harchuk with Kors Engineering. Peters was ultimately looking for a way to secure each facility while meeting Homeland Securities Customs-Trade Partnership Against Terrorist (C-TPAT) requirements and remaining within budget. Upon finding ISONAS in September of 2011, Henry and facilities manager, Marv Corless, began the self-install process immediately; first starting with a three reader system. Before discovering the value in ISONAS, all of Marwood’s buildings utilised a standard, hardkey system.
ISONAS access control platform
In Henry’s search for the right system to meet their requirements, they had compared ADT’s access control system with ISONAS. When asked what the main factors where for choosing the ISONAS reader-controller over ADT, Peters responded with, “ISONAS was lower in cost by about 20% and even though we could have had an integrated monitoring and access control system with ADT, it was not as robust as the ISONAS access control platform.” Peters also expressed that it was in their best interest to run CAT 5 PoE to each door to take full advantage of the technological capabilities of the readers. He explains that, “We already had the infrastructure in place to run PoE. It would have been very expensive to run conduit to each door to support the ADT system.” The install team for the implementation consisted of Henry, the facilities manager and an electrician. Henry explained that he had no prior experience in working with any type of security system. Although they only began with a three reader controller pilot, Henry says that, “If we had all 13 readers at once, we would have been able to install everything in less than a week. Each reader only took about 30 minutes to install after getting the first one up and running. After I saw that the system worked great, we continued to expand.”
ISONAS hardware and Crystal Matrix software
Marwood now has the ISONAS hardware and Crystal Matrix software controlling 13 access points. The ISONAS reader controllers currently monitor access to 12 exterior doors and one IT room on 4 different buildings, across the one square mile of property.
Henry is now able to closely monitor which Marwood employees are in each building. Safety is of upmost concern at industrial facilities. So it is very important to keep a close eye on employees and visitors coming onto the premises. When Henry was asked about the biggest value he saw in using ISONAS, he responded with, “The hardware works great and does exactly what we need it to.” Also, the management software is a great tool. We manage everything from one location and we use Crystal Matrix in a hosted environment so we can log all the data, but the readers are still standalone capable if the network and/or server connection is lost. We are very satisfied with ISONAS system and we have yet to find something we need it to do that it doesn’t.” Marwood plans to continue their expansion of the ISONAS system in the first quarter of 2013.
