A World of Opportunities with Enhanced Video Surveillance

Surveillance cameras have been in use for decades, and organizations that employ them are able to collect a valuable record of what has happened in the area being watched by their cameras. But organizations that use smart cameras, video management software and data analytics can approach their surveillance video as data and gain far more value from it.

In the past, security teams have been in charge of surveillance, for obvious reasons, but by bringing IT professionals in to make use of the data that surveillance systems create, organizations open up a variety of use cases.

Learn how enhanced video surveillance solutions can provide value beyond physical security.

For example, the manufacturing industry has a wide variety of opportunities to apply enhanced video surveillance (EVS) technology to modernize operations, improve efficiency and enhance physical security.

To get started, a company should consider upgrading network connectivity throughout its facilities and connecting IP-based cameras to monitor business processes. By connecting these cameras to the data network and applying analytics software to the video data being collected, a company can unlock a number of valuable capabilities. Let’s take a look at some innovative ways that EVS technology can improve a company’s work.

Enhancing the Quality of Manufacturing

Manufacturing processes often involve rigid timelines and precise metrics. For example, a company producing prestressed concrete slabs must ensure the slabs are strong enough to support critical applications where safety depends on quality materials. These slabs must have rebar embedded at regular intervals to provide reinforcement, and they must be cooled slowly and steadily to prevent defects that might lead to structural failures. It’s difficult for manufacturers to monitor this process and even more challenging to demonstrate the quality of the production process to customers.

Enhanced video surveillance can change all of this. By placing video and infrared cameras throughout the production facility, a manufacturer can detect and correct any deficiencies during the production process. Better yet, EVS collects video evidence the company can provide to customers, demonstrating that every slab leaving the facility meets stringent quality requirements.

Boosting Employee Health with Automated COVID Screening

Manufacturing is an essential industry that keeps the U.S. economy moving. The COVID pandemic has shut down facilities around the world, but factories may be able to leverage their EVS investments to remain open safely. A manufacturer can use its EVS system to automatically screen entrants to a factory. Anyone seeking access can walk up to a kiosk where cameras measure their skin temperature and verify that they are properly wearing a mask. By integrating this measure with a facility’s physical security system, a company can deny access to anyone who has bypassed or failed this screening until they have completed further screening.

More Opportunities to Take Advantage of EVS

These aren’t the only ways that enhanced video surveillance can improve a company’s efficiency and effectiveness. At a company that is actively thinking about deploying video-supported intelligence, business and IT leaders may come up with new applications every week. In some cases, the ideas may not even involve the company’s core business. For example, following a snowstorm, a facility manager may be unable to easily reconcile invoices from snow removal vendors with the work they had performed. But EVS technology can help a company track snow removal and automatically correlate parking lot activity with vendor invoices.

The possibilities are limitless, and CDW looks forward to continuing its work with business leaders to enhance their use of video surveillance technology.