West Bromwich Albion
Overview
I’ve been in this industry for nearly 40 years and firmly believe there’s a right way and wrong way of doing things. In my experience, I’ve found that being sincere and honest can form valuable connections and win people over, which often then develops into a business opportunity. This was the case recently when Zicam had the opportunity to work with West Bromwich Albion football club.
The club’s managing director, Mark Miles, and I first met when he joined in 2003 and we’ve kept in touch since, so when I joined Zicam it made perfect sense to call Mark and introduce the company to him. I believe Zicam is best-in-class for integrated security systems and it’s important to me to let my contacts know what we do and what the company is about. As it turned out, during my conversation with Mark, I discovered the club had an immediate requirement for gates at their training ground and following a site visit, this is what I proposed.
Situation
Gates and barriers at a football stadium or training grounds are important for the safety and security of the equipment, players and staff and it was clear that the existing gates at the club’s training ground were not fit for this purpose.
The gates had been poorly fitted and installed and then modified over the years to try and rectify various problems. Everything we do now has to fully comply with the current DHF standards and, with this in mind, my recommendation was to completely replace the automatic gates, posts, automation, and communication set up with a fully compliant and totally reliable gate operation with modern communication and CCTV/ ANPR access entry.
Solution
West Bromwich Albion FC were happy with the proposal and authorised the project to go ahead, and this is how their new and compliant gates and barriers system now works:
The fully automated single leaf swing gate works in conjunction with a Hikvision automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) camera mounted on the gate hinged post column within the driveway approach entrance.
On recognition, the Wiegand output from the ANPR provides the necessary input to the Paxton Net2 professional operating software installed on staff computers.
The ANPR camera is also connected via IT LAN Network to the network video recorder (NVR) and viewed on a flat screen monitor. Visitors and delivery drivers press the Telguard single call button intercom unit which opens the communication channel and has the facility to call up to 8 different call numbers.
Once accepted, by simply pressing the “hash key”, the security guard activates the barriers and controlled gates operation.
Results
The new system delivers a range of benefits to the club, including:
- Flexibility – the system can be operated by an authorised user from anywhere on site using their mobile phone
- Safety compliance – the new gates and barriers meet DHF safety standards
- Improved security - only people authorised by the football club can enter the training ground.
- Cost saving – remote operation means fewer personnel are required
- Easy management – new number plates can easily be added to the system.
