Famous for the design and manufacture of some of the world’s finest jewellery, a leading manufacturer’s diverse contemporary designs are sold around the globe and are renowned within the jewellery industry as representing the cutting edge of Italian style.
Due to the ever-increasing popularity of the brand and subsequent sales growth around the world, the Italian firm has invested in a new manufacturing facility in the Milan area.
Because of the high value of products it produces, along with the raw material stocks of precious metal and gemstones, factory management have invested in state-of-the-art security facilities. These include ‘physical’ security such as strong rooms, the latest safe technology, intruder alarms, access control and a sophisticated fire alarm system. Bridging the various aspects of its security, and considered to be the cornerstone of their overall security system, is a new and comprehensive CCTV installation.
To meet the requirements of the CCTV system, factory management turned to Videoline to specify and supply the technology this facility required. Installed by Vago, the system comprises 37 PTZ cameras and 55 fixed-head units, covering all areas of the factory. The intelligent location of each camera allows operators alarm verification, with the use of pre-programmed alarm driven pre-set camera positioning. This presents operators in the control room with visual information the moment an alarm is triggered. It can also be used for confirmation of identity in association with the facility’s access control system. This is useful to confirm any discrepancy at any of the multiple turnstiles located around the site’s perimeter.
CCTV also covers internal manufacturing areas where they are tasked with a health and safety role, ensuring best practice is met to at all times. While cameras covering the site’s external storage facilities and perimeter are more security focused to ensure the factory is protected from opportunist intruders.
Installers Vago were faced with numerous issues when tasked with transmitting video information from the comprehensive network of cameras, to the control room. Space in the facility is at a premium and the factory required minimal downtime during the installation, so any civil works conducted to incorporate the CCTV installation needed to be kept to a minimum. It was decided to distribute the visual information from the network of cameras back to the control room using Network Video Technologies’ (NVT) unshielded twisted pair (UTP) video transmission technology.
What they say
Marco Lazzaroni of Videoline says: "Right from the project’s start, installers Vago understood the advantages of using NVT technology and the benefits it would bring to this unique installation. We gave Vago a comprehensive demonstration of the superior video quality and unparalleled interference protection an NVT based installation would deliver. Then provided Vago with comprehensive training at our facility, before they commenced the installation of the system.
Using NVT’s NV-214A-M UTP video transmitters and Passive Hub receivers meant Vago could balance each video signal to achieve perfect images and ensure complete compatibility with the digital video recording (DVR) equipment the system used – an essential feature as today’s DVR’s demand a high-quality video signal to work at their optimum level.
Part of the initial design brief for the CCTV system was to ensure it had built-in future proof capability. As the factory produces many different products and designs, coupled with the rapid expansion of the company’s production over the last few years, meant that any increase in production of certain lines could necessitate changes in the factory floor’s layout. Using NVT technology means that any associated camera relocation would be quickly and easily catered for, with any additional cameras being wired into one of the ‘built-in’ spare UTP pairs contained within the building’s Cat5 cable network. This represents a huge advantage over a traditional a coax based system, where the requirement of additional coax cables drives-up the cost of any adjustments due to cable costs and obtrusive civil works.
"The factory’s security system is an excellent example of what is possible when cross-format security systems are seamlessly integrated to provide the end-user with a comprehensive and effective security package." Marco Lazzaroni concludes: "Factory management have taken delivery of an overall security package which integrates all their key security measures into one easily administered system, whilst providing an invaluable health and safety, and day-to-day management tool. Installers Vago were very impressed with the training and technical support they received from NVT and Videoline, and this has led to firm plans to continue our technical partnership throughout many major forthcoming projects."
