At Bavaria, hospitality is firmly embedded within the company’s corporate culture and the company attaches considerable importance to the concepts of emotion and the experience. As a result of the growth that the company has undergone during the past few years, more stringent requirements are being imposed in connection with access control and security.
The system that the company has just acquired serves to reconcile the corporate culture with the requirements in terms of security. As a visitor drives up, the barrier at the entrance to the car park is raised without a hitch. Visitors can then report to the friendly receptionist. It is only at that point that they will be confronted with the first type of access control, when the receptionist asks them to register at the visitor registration post in the lobby.
Phased registration of visitors
Part of the registration procedure involves reading a number of safety and security rules. Once the user has read these, his/her visitor’s badge will be printed and the person with whom the visitor has an appointment will be informed.
Our vision with regard to access control is that a visitor should not be faced with a tall fence on arrival"
“Our vision with regard to access control is that a visitor should not be faced with a tall fence on arrival, but that the barrier should automatically be raised when he/she arrives. We do, of course, wish to know who is coming in and where on our site a particular person is located.” These words were spoken by Jos Senden, the Facility Manager at Bavaria, who is responsible for security.
From what he tell us about how security at Bavaria was organised until just a few years ago, it soon becomes clear that this vision was only implemented recently.
Improving security processes
“At the entrance, there were a few security cameras and a fairly unstructured system of recording visitors.” And yet at the time, the company was undergoing a period of rapid national and international growth, as a result of which the necessary expansions took place at the company’s headquarters in Lieshout in the province of North Brabant and the organisational requirements in terms of security changed.
As Jos Senden went on to explain: “But you could say that in those days, security policy did not keep pace with the growth of the organisation itself.” An example of this lay in the fact that at a particular moment, two access control systems were actually in use. What is more, Bavaria was increasingly being required to complete audits for major customers and those audits included questions regarding access control and security.
Determining a security policy
Improving the company’s security processes was therefore essential and there was an increasing feeling that a structured security policy should be put in place. In 2009, the fact that the company was operating two different access control systems became such a problem that a project group was created to address the issue.
We immediately embarked on a search for solutions, but we soon realised that what we needed was a security policy"
“In the beginning, we immediately embarked on a search for solutions, but we soon realised that what we needed was a security policy. After all, a policy is a foundation that you can build upon,” said John Aalders, the IT System and Network Controller, who was involved in the project right from the start. He went on to explain that: “We first drew up a list of the risks that we wished to protect ourselves against and once we had done that, we used that information in order to establish a system of zones across the entire site.”
Security policy plan
“The underlying principle behind this was that we did not wish to create something that resembled Fort Knox. Our aim was to project an image of openness and hospitality, while maintaining security at the same time.” As Jos Senden went on to add: “At Bavaria, being hospitable and open is part of our company culture. A brewery is all about emotion and the experience and this was something that needed to be reflected in our access control and security systems.”
In 2012, the security policy plan, based upon all of the risks that had been defined, together with the zoning system that had been introduced, was adopted. The project team, which included representatives of the Facility, IT and Engineering departments, the company’s own construction office, an external consultant and the company’s own installer, could then set out to identify a suitable solution.
New access control and security system
All of these things represented needs that we had and were what led us to choose AEOS by Nedap"
The Specifications listed a large number of requirements that the new access control and security system would be required to fulfil. However, Senden frankly admits that a number of requirements were only included as the project went along. “We can say that our insight developed progressively, especially with regard to the possibilities to create a security platform that is ready to meet the needs that arise in the future. What is needed is therefore a system that is scalable, user-friendly, can be linked to other management systems, is IP-based and so on."
"All of these things represented needs that we had and were what led us to choose AEOS by Nedap.” In the meantime, the new access control system has been up and running for 18 months and for Senden, the most important conclusion that can be drawn is that AEOS was the right choice for them.
Zero technical limitations
“The flexibility of the system in particular is ideal. Our company processes are easy to incorporate; the system supports this and as an organisation, we are not confronted with any technical limitations.”
John Aalders was able to give a great example of this. “Our initial requirement was for a new access control system, but along the way, we decided that we also needed camera monitoring and an intruder detection system. And recently, the question arose within the organisation as to whether the system could be linked to other building management systems. We have now progressed so far that we are now talking about a graphical interface, known as the Graphical Alarm Handler. All incident reports are received at a central location and can be dealt with by Security.”
In the enthusiastic account conveyed by Jos Senden and John Aalders, one particular word - flexibility - comes up again and again.
Easy to produce visitor’s badge
We haven’t started to record details of vehicles, but it will be a question of setting up the system whenever any such need arises"
When asked whether this was the primary factor behind the ultimate choice of the system, the answer was “Yes”. As Senden himself explained: “Not only does this system make it very easy to produce a visitor’s badge, but its ability to be expanded and the simplicity with which the system can be linked to other packages, formed important factors for us.”
Aalders went on to illustrate this by giving a practical example. “All manner of information is stored within a whole variety of systems. Imagine that I change my job title tomorrow, the new title will simply be entered into the personnel information system and will be processed automatically in our central employee database. This is linked to AEOS, and so the master data that relate to me are immediately amended to show my new position.”
Single open platform
“But we mustn’t lose sight of our needs in the future. At the moment, we haven’t started to record details of vehicles, but it will be a question of setting up the system whenever any such need arises,” explained Senden.
Each of these situations is an example that illustrates the fact that the system fulfils Bavaria’s initial requirement that as many tasks as possible can be carried out centrally, using a single open platform. In order to utilise the system in the most efficient possible way, managing it correctly will also be essential, continued Senden. “With that in mind, we set up a Management group that meets every two weeks in order to share experiences and discuss ongoing matters.” The Management group is made up of representatives of all of the interested departments.
Implementation of new access control system
This in itself underlines the fact that access control and security are a joint responsibility and that they are not simply the concern of the Facility and Security department. “As a result of this, issues can now be addressed in a structured manner and management is a continuous process, in which all interested parties are represented.”
We made sure that we communicated messages via our intranet and our staff magazine about the changes"
In a great many organisations, the implementation of a new access control system generates resistance. How was this perceived at Bavaria? As Senden himself explained: “If you switch from a system with 50 card-readers to a system with 140 and security measures are introduced at all doorways, you can certainly expect to encounter a certain amount of resistance. In order to address this, we made sure that during the run-up to the implementation, we communicated messages via our intranet and our staff magazine about the changes and explained why the systems were being introduced.
Enabled to engender support
During the planning stages of the project, however, we also involved department managers and asked them which areas they wished to be secured or which needed to remain accessible. Adopting this approach enabled us to engender support for the changes to come.”
“But the information was also well received by the employees themselves. Informing people effectively and in good time is therefore something that is highly important. That is why we didn’t experience very many problems,” concluded Aalders.
