HOW TO STOP FALSE ALARMS AND NUISANCE PHONE CALLS

Every Warehouse FM’s Nightmare

Nearly every facilities manager has experienced it - the early Sunday morning call from an unrecognised number - a sinking feeling of a looming site issue dragging you away from sleep and time away from work with your family. “It’s the control room again” you think, as you begin to recognise the pattern of numbers from the caller ID. “Another false alarm from those bloody birds again I bet!”.

But ignore it at your peril - because what if it’s not a false alarm this time - what if there is a genuine issue on site that needs your attention?

So you take the call. “Hello Sir, we’ve received an alarm activation from the North East Warehouse motion sensor. It’s only activated once” say the irritatingly chirpy control room operator, given the unnatural hour of the morning. “Would you like me to send a patrol to site?”.

It’s the same sensor that went off last week, and the weekend before. The one right next to the dispatch roller door that’s open all day. The one where the starlings fly in and out of. “Damn it, the bloody birds again!”.

So you ask the operator to ignore it. You roll over to go back to sleep. But you don’t. Because now you’re back in work mode thinking about other site issues that still need to be addressed. “I’m going to kill those birds, and the flaming security company on Monday!”

Cost Saving Security Systems

Does this sound like a similar story? You’re certainly not alone. Security alarm systems are designed to detect intruders, but in large open industrial spaces like warehouses that are not a sealed environment, they can also detect all manner of things - such as nesting birds, rodents, or even unsecured roller door chains moving on windy nights.

So what’s the solution. It’s likely you may have already forked out on getting the security company to service the system and check it over, only to find out nothing is wrong with the system. “Thanks!”, you sarcastically think to yourself when you receive the bill (and let’s not talk about the wasted costs for patrol cars that have been sent to site - “that’s going to look great against this months budget!”)

So read on, as here are our two top solutions for eliminating nuisance false alarms at your facility :

The Onion Approach to Alarm Sensors

Just like the layers of an onion protect the core - in physical security this metaphorical approach can be applied to multiple layers of security being used to protect sites assets - think perimeter fencing on the outer, and door locks and safes as you move towards the inner.

This same approach should be applied within the subsets of your security systems - such as an alarm system having a layer of alarm detection over the top of another layer. In this case, in relation to securing a warehouse, that may look like having reed switch sensors on all of the pedestrian and roller doors, and behind that layer are internal spatial motion sensors. An intruder breaching the outer layer by gaining entry through a door, would then be detected by the next layer of motion sensors.

This approach not only helps increase the security of your facility, but it virtually eliminates false alarms - as two sensors need to be activated in order for the control room to invoke a response. No starling or sparrow is ever going to trigger the motion sensor, and open the door!

In our experience, too many security systems put all their eggs in one basket (‘eggs’, do you get it!) by relying on a single sensor type for detection throughout their warehouse. We get it, as it lowers the cost of the installation whilst still serving it’s core purpose - however it doesn’t help if the growing number of false alarms cause stakeholders to loose faith in the system - and just like the boy that cried wolf in Aesop’s fable, one day a genuine event could be ignored.

In fact, in other countries around the world such as the UK, it is mandatory to have more than one sensor type trigger before activating an alarm - lowering the false alarm rate and allowing a more effective and appropriate response to genuine security events.

The one draw back to this approach is cost. Especially if you’re looking to upgrade and retrofit extra sensors to an existing facility.

Caught on Camera with Video Verification

Another solution, and one that is becoming more prevalent in the security industry, is what is know as Remote Video Verification (RVR). Essentially, it’s checking what the cause of the alarm was using video surveillance before taking an appropriate response.

There’s a chance that you may already be doing something similar: the alarm activates; the control room call you. You open the camera app on your phone; try and locate the camera nearest to where the alarm went off and then scrub through playback to find the cause. All costing valuable time, and no mean feat when using an iPhone in the darkness of a Sunday morning at 3am.

In this instance though, it’s the control room operators that do the video verification, not you. Utilising software in the back-end, the control room can link alarm sensors with video camera feeds. If a sensor is activated the control room operator can immediately see what the cause was. If there are persons or vehicles on site when there shouldn’t be - raise the alarm. If it’s a bird, then no response is required - alarm stood down.

A great benefit of RVR is that if a genuine event is witnessed by the control room on the cameras, the police will respond as a potential break & enter or burglary is in progress - a far more appropriate response than just waking you or sending a patrol vehicle.

Finally, as RVR usually relies on utilising your existing video surveillance infrastructure, the cost outlay can be minimal.

Final Thoughts

As we continue to see great improvements in AI technology turbocharge the use and effectiveness of video surveillance data, we eventually foresee that traditional alarm sensors will become obsolete. Instead, artificial intelligence in cameras will be able to detect and analyse exactly what is happening on site - be it intruders, or seagulls - and invoke the correct response.

If you’re facility is suffering from false alarms and you’re paying the consequence with sleepless nights and disturbed weekends, give Red Flag Security a call on 1300 685 504 or fill in the contact request form below.