When the staffs of Security Technology Executive and Security Business magazines and our sister web portal SecurityInfoWatch.com decided to relaunch our awards program this year after a brief hiatus, the revamped Security Vanguard Awards for 2020 maintained the philosophy of recognizing the best collaborative-effort security project of a partnered team of systems integrators and security solutions providers for their end-user clients. This coveted accolade recognizes the most impressive integrated technology and solutions project of the previous year highlighting the lead technology vendors, systems integrator, consultant and the end-user client. This year’s decision was a difficult one as more than 30 submissions crossed the desks of our judges before an overall winner was chosen along with our two runners-up.
All three of the award-winning projects will be featured in both magazines, with Security Business initiating the coverage with its November issue and Security Tech Exec following with their November/December magazine. Look for the three awards stories to be posted on SIW this week.
The submissions received this year spanned the gamut of vertical markets. However, the final selections were extremely representative of the diversified nature of the security industry. The top project reflects the teamwork of a national medical laboratory that found itself in the middle of a crisis pandemic while upgrading its security systems over multiple sites. One of the runners-up demonstrates the collaboration needed to reconstruct a complete school system and address its security issues following a devastating hurricane, while the other tracks the tribulations of a state government agency looking to migrate its security technology from analog to an IP-based solution.
Each project team confronted starkly different challenges from the outset but found a common denominator for each job in their firm commitment to integrated solutions that met the needs of the users.
Retrofitting During a Pandemic
When ARUP Labs and Utah-based integrator Stone Security began the process of on all-encompassing security greenfield and upgrade projects at its facilities, like many industries in 2020, COVID changed the plan. Thanks to a quick pivot by the end-user and its security integration and consultation partners, ARUP was able to proceed with its security upgrades while at the same time still supporting the country’s rapidly expanding COVID-19 testing needs to the tune of more than 3,000 a day and also protecting its staff at the same time.
Because of the deluge of COVID-19 samples that flooded into ARUP Labs starting in April, the facility was forced to convert much of its office space into laboratory space, which meant a total redesign and implementation of custom-designed access control hardware and integrated video surveillance for these “new” labs. There was also a large integration of video surveillance cameras and analytics software with the facility’s access control and badging solution across several campus locations. The coordinated efforts of the security vendors, the low-voltage contractors and the Stone Security integration group provided ARUP an advanced and integrated solution to help them flourish during a crisis and beyond.
The Runners-Up
In Richmond County, Georgia, it was becoming apparent that trying to manage their security operations at the Augusta-Richmond County Judicial Center with an antiquated analog-only system was not a solution for the future. So, they were able to turn SPLOST funding into a technology redo. Working with systems integrator A3 Communications, they started in the final quarter of 2019 outfitting the county’s judicial, municipal, fleet management, and recreation center buildings with a wide array of new security technologies, including a state-of-the-art IP-video surveillance management platform that is tied into its access control system. The challenges came as a pandemic raged and this massive retrofit had to accomplish in an open and frenzied environment.
In Sept. 2017, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico suffered extensive damage as the result of two major hurricanes and damaging tropical-storm-force winds and heavy rains that knocked out electricity to more than one million people. The commonwealth’s school system, which operates more than 850 public schools, turned to a security integration partner, Genesis Security Services Inc., to build a centrally managed video surveillance solution, as well as implement new intrusion detection and audio communication technology across its campuses. The biggest challenge for the island’s school system was getting the new surveillance network up and running while coordinating all the resources at the scale necessary to deliver it on time. All of the security retrofits and upgrades were also hampered as the island continued to rebuild its infrastructure, making this a truly unique project.
