The 2014 ASIS Accolades offers me a chance to highlight a couple of Critical Infrastructure products that are innovative and great examples of creativity within the Physical security space. First, however, I think I quick primer is in order to better understand Critical Infrastructure.
Two relatively recent (since 9/11, essentially) specialized markets within the security industry are Critical Infrastructure and City-Wide Surveillance (Safer Cities). Many confuse the two sectors and fail to see the distinctions that make them quite different.
Two primary differences include 1.) Entity and 2.) Key Professionals.
The entity usually being sold to in a Safer Cities (City-Wide Surveillance) scenario is a unit of government. Within the Critical Infrastructure sale the entity is more often a Company. This distinction is important to recognize as it impacts the entire sales process.
The Key Professionals within a City-Wide Surveillance effort are often Law Enforcement and Public Officials. With a Critical Infrastructure project the Key Professionals are Security Directors, Consultants, and Engineers. Knowing the players in these projects requires tailoring the sales effort accordingly.
When it comes to security products, solutions, and design there can be some overlap between Critical Infrastructure and City-Wide Surveillance. Yet, two products from the ASIS Accolades this year are very clearly Critical Infrastructure focused and very innovative.
From Quantum Technology Sciences we have their “Remote Location Surveillance” which is a self-contained system that uses ground vibration sensors to protect remote assets. Think of large complexes or distant locations where vital assets (Oil and Gas, Chemical, Mining) are located. The Quantum solution is a self-contained system that detects and report intrusions in remote areas.
With more of a visual “wow” factor than ground sensors, another winner in this year’s ASIS awards was the Senstar RoboGuard. This bit of innovation is a monorail system designed to provide an extra measure of perimeter protection using “robots” that have multiple cameras, audio and analytics on board.
While the Roboguard has gone through a year of testing it will be interesting to see how the components work over the long haul. Having implemented a monorail video solution back in the late 80’s I am hopeful the technology has improved immensely with this offering.