Investment in peace of mind

By: Santiago Jaramillo H.

During the last five years, crime in Mexico did not present significant changes with respect to previous years, but the perception of insecurity has increased, as assured by the National Survey on Insecurity delivered annually by Icesi (Citizen Institute of Studies on Insecurity).

The entity revealed that in 2004, one in two people (54%) felt unsafe where they lived, during 2007 it increased to three in five people (59%) and it is estimated that this year that figure will increase at similar levels. However, the prevalence of crime, which refers to the percentage of persons who were victims of a crime in relation to the total population, has remained stable.

The report also warns that of the crimes of the common jurisdiction, which constitute 95% of total crime in Mexico, six out of seven crimes committed in the country (86%) were robberies.

Icesi also reveals that for fear of insecurity, in six out of ten households minors are no longer allowed to go out on the street. For the same reason, half of Mexicans avoid going out at night.

But this is not only a problem of Mexico, on the contrary, most Latin American countries suffer from security problems, that is why the need that has arisen in many companies in the area, as is the case of this pharmaceutical chain, which sought to reinforce its own tranquility and that of its customers through a closed circuit television system which allows it to prevent and identify illicit within its facilities.

Precisely to delve deeper into this regard, Teleyucsa (System Integrators) and Syscom (Authorized Distributor of Hikvision for Mexico), spoke with the magazine VENTAS DE SEGURIDAD.

"The project consists of the implementation of CCTV in more than 100 branches of a prestigious chain of pharmacies nationwide, where digital recorders of 16 channels Hikvision model DS7016HI-S are being installed considering using an audio channel and seven starting cameras to later grow to the total of supported cameras," they said regarding the generalities of the work carried out in the aforementioned pharmaceutical chain.

Hikvision's series of digital recorders is a third-generation product with high performance for surveillance. It uses a real-time operating system and an integrated MCU. It supports both digital video (DVR) and digital video server (DVS) features. It can work independently or be used for the construction of powerful networks, widely used in the field of surveillance.

Security, a prevailing need
With the leadership of the service for more than 90 years and the important presence in the north, center, west and pacific of Mexico, this pharmaceutical chain, which in its country is synonymous with professionalism, trust, variety and service, serves, through more than 500 branches in the Mexican Republic, more than 127 million annual customers on average, which makes it imperative to provide this conglomerate, especially in some of its points of sale, high standards of quality and safety.

"There have been different cases such as murder of people, theft of vehicles, theft of medicines, armed robberies, to mention just a few, so the importance of having quality tools that help complement the security schemes of this chain of pharmacies," he stressed.

Monitoring and control
As reported by the developers of the project, "the monitoring center is located in the north of the country, and this is carried out through an infrastructure that allows them to have full control of the system, regardless of the city in which each of the branches is located."

Regarding the objectives or purposes when implementing the security system, Acosta warns that it was due "to the need to avoid theft of medicines and have evidence of criminal acts. The system is completely autonomous from other security systems," he says.

It should also be noted that the CCTV system drastically reduces the need for security personnel. The possibility of covering larger areas from a point that allows few guards to cover more ground and perform a better surveillance job.

Supervision can be from the same area, but also from remote areas in different cities or even in different countries. This way a security person can cover several branches.

As for why they chose the technology mentioned for this project, Acosta, Engineering Manager of Syscom, assures that "it was considered to be the most reliable and due to the growth of the project the cost was taken into account, in addition to the fact that the performance of the equipment and its flexibility allowed to make a precise integration, which has led to a solution with the best cost-benefit ratio for the end customer".

For his part, in what has to do with the satisfaction of the end user in the face of this technology, the representative of the Mexican security industry, warns that "they have received good comments from their customers, who express that it is good that they have cameras and, as a highlight, they have already taken evidence of events," he says.

All of the above, added to the contribution to the tranquility of the client, speak in an unbeatable way of the contribution that security systems such as the one used by this pharmaceutical chain, and that can be taken to companies of different branches.

Recording Features:
QCIF recording resolution, CIF.
Supports sleep mode for Hard Drive.
Supports S.M.A.R.T. Hard Drives technology.
Supports FAT32 file system.
It supports multiple types of recording, including real-time, manual recording, video sensor, external alarm, video sensor and alarm, video sensor or alarm.
Supports cyclic (overwriting) and non-cyclic recording.
Supports USB sticks, USB hard drives, USB CD-R/W.
Supports local remote control PTZ.
OggVorbis Audio Compression (only requires 16 KB for audio transmission).
Multiple users with varying levels of access.
Supports calendar search locally or remotely.
Failure warning programming (exceptions) that produces greater confidence.
One alarm input for each video channel.
Power supply 100-240 vac, 6.3 A.
Operating temperature -10ºC - +55ºC.
No hard drive.
Includes DVD and CD burner.

Author: Julián Arcila Restrepo

Chief Marketer

Communications professional, MBA, specialized in designing and executing successful Public Relations and Digital Marketing campaigns with more than 14 years of experience in areas related to communications.