From the May 2011 print issue of Professional Security Magazine.
The recently unveiled Unipart monitoring and response centre in some ways had the ingredients that you would expect from such a centre – and some you might not see elsewhere, Mark Rowe reports.
It’s not cheap to open an ARC, as Colin Moore, MD of Unipart Security Solutions (USS), said. “We wanted to create a total solution.” That meant first gaining SIA approved contractor status, taking the passport route through the National Security Inspectorate (NSI). Next: creating an alarm receiving centre (ARC), to NSI Gold standard – or, to give the room its exact title, a monitoring and response centre. Colin Moore said: “There was quite some deliberation on the name. We think it’s much more than an ARC, a remote monitoring centre. We want to offer a wider service.” Those other services include vehicles and asset tracking (using the Masternaut software), management of manned guards, lone worker protection, and a 24-7 help desk. The security side of Unipart got funding from the board for this development, as USS is looking to open new markets, and not just offer security services to Unpiart’s present customers.
You do not talk to someone from the company or walk around its sites for long before you encounter the Unipart Way, the company’s way of working. Colin recalled that he had been head of security at Fedex, a buyer of security services for many years. So having worked on the other side of the fence, as it were, Colin knows that what customers really want may not be the same as what a contract guarding company thinks the security buyer wants, or what is given. On the back wall of the monitoring centre, as on many walls around the Cowley site on the outskirts of Oxford, are charts and graphs that detail the Unipart Way and how the particular part of the business applies the 18 ‘lean’ principles of the Way. An aim is continuous improvement in everything the company does. For monitoring, that means seeking to minimise false alarms, besides the more usual control room work such as answering the phone and calling back. One principle stressed was that of allowing people to solve problems at their own level, if there is an issue: so that staff discuss it, work out a possible way to solve it – maybe some training? a CCTV camera sited somewhere? – and work on it, because if an issue were to rise as far as the MD (and this is not to single out Colin Moore, but any head of guarding), by then it’s too late, in that the problem has probably gone on for some time. Hence on the back wall of the monitoring centre, the various performance measures, daily, monthly and for the year. Unipart are far from the only company to make something of business principles, but there is no denying they are applied seriously, whether in the staff restaurant, warehouses, or the security division. It means staff taking things into their own hands, and attending to detail. So while you might expect a new monitoring centre to look new and clean, how many have hygienic hand-gel on the operators’ desks, as Unipart had? The operator chairs, likewise, were sourced from a control room company; Unipart looked at a number, a smaller number were set up by the furniture manufacturer; and a comfortable and adjustable chair was chosen. To describe inside: once through the airlock – a FAAC door closer, Videx door entry and Panasonic dome – on the wall by the entrance door was a flat screen showing the BBC 24-hour news. On the long wall that the operator desks faced were four flat screens and a larger, central screen, showing a map of central London. Above was a digital clock. The temperature panel said 21 degrees C. The centre’s builders (it’s a former battery store) have been careful to plan for when – as they said – they outgrow the room. Who can say how many council and shopping centre control rooms have within a few years become cramped? It’ll be simple, visitors were told, to knock down the wall and double the space.
About the company: Unipart operates primarily in the distribution and logistics market, either managing customers’ supply chains or selling products to the customer through its warehouses and branches. Clients include Homebase and Vodafone. Visit www.unipart.co.uk
About Unipart Security Solutions: Based in Weedon in Northamptonshire, clients include 3, Jaguar and asos.com. The new monitoring centre in Oxford replaces one providing monitoring for Unipart Group sites. Visit –
