The role of automation in security systems design and delivery

How has technology changed the security industry? 

Much like every other industry, security has seen the evolution of technological sophistication across almost every aspect of the sector.

From the drawing of security designs moving from a draftsman to CAD and BIM operators, to CCTV installations moving from peak to peak voltage readings and manual lens focussing to automatic IP address configuration and auto-focus built-in. Even in the security control room where video monitoring has been moving from walls of screens and manual matrices, to edge-analytics that can do the same at a fraction of the speed – not to mention a fraction of the real estate! 

These few examples and everything in between help highlight just how much technology has changed not only the practices employed throughout the industry, but also the skills and expertise required to identify, install and implement these new systems.

Every year we are offered a slew of new “tech” and “trends” set to “revolutionize” the security industry.

But I’ve found the security industry to be incredibly slow to adopt and take advantage of new technologies, with many never making it past a “cool idea”, a proof of concept or simply words and articles filling column inches to make a point that the industry has its finger on the pulse. 

So why is this? In a world where technology has propelled companies from basements and garages to the top of the stock market, and shifted the industrial hubs from the manufacture of physical objects to the software development enclaves dotted around the globe, why are these very technologies that are delivering innovation and progress being adopted so slowly by the security industry?

The answer is change. It’s the change, not just in the technology and systems that are available but it’s also the changing skillset required to fully utilize these new systems. The industry finds itself in an age of flux where training is needed to empower the traditional teams to excel in new, more relevant domains.

This is true of all areas of a security project, from Design consultants needing to understand network topologies, to manufacturers needing to spot how the newest technologies can be best applied within the industry. It’s installers and integrators who need the engineering teams to be familiar in server and database setup and even the end-users who need to embrace these new technologies, even if their existing system [installed over a decade ago] “still works fine”...

So what is the solution? The first step is surely education, with technological advancements not about to stand still, the security industry needs to recognise this skills shortage and companies need to be investing in their current workforce in these less traditional areas, along with attracting technologists outside of the industry to bring their expertise with a new perspective.

These leaps in technology need understanding and tracking, and those that have a commercial application should be identified and celebrated, rather than viewed with skepticism and suspicion as is currently the case; I remember when we first began showing our automation software to integrators and there were some who, instead of seeing the value in automation and standardisation, viewed it as a threat to their bottom line.

More and more there is a pressing need for collaboration between the analogue and digital minds in the security world, with both benefiting from the technology available.

Automation is the key to providing this consistency and accuracy, focussing the right people on the right job; anyone who has had to price a job or put together a proposal will have had the pain of printing out drawings to A0, grabbing a set of highlighter pens and taking the rest of the day to get the devices counted!

That tends not to be the sort of work that anyone enjoys, and especially if that person can be delivering a lot more value doing something else! The same goes for the system programming – no one wants their trained engineer stuck in a basement for a week programming events for the access control system – least of all the engineers themselves, take it from someone who knows!

As I look around the latest trends in tech within the industry there are some elements of this joined up approach creeping in, but there is still work to be done. There are lots of great products, with cameras that can recognise the name on a name badge from 100 meters; geo-location tagging to pinpoint where in the world assets are physically located; even the “future of man guarding”, which apparently is a darlek with a smiley face.

But in all of this there seem to be few products offering help at the earlier stage of a project. Naturally the systems on show are the “end game”, what you want to see once the project is complete and all cameras are recording, all doors are locked.

But the job of getting to that point is almost everything that the industry does, and that journey is what I feel must have more attention paid to it, must have more innovation and investment in order to not only make everyone’s lives easier, but to bring together each stage and business as a partnership to completing a project, rather than being guarded and looking for ways to cover things that may not have been done, or not done correctly.

As a [still] relatively small industry, everyone involved should be working together to drive towards the future, keeping up with current trends rather than bringing up the rear.