R/Dominican. The upgrade of a closed video surveillance system by an open platform video management system was carried out in a tobacco company in the Dominican Republic: La Aurora, can now manage in a simpler way the security of its facilities and improve its operational efficiency.
This company, which has been operating since 1903 and which today has its main facilities in the Tamboril Industrial Park of the city of Santiago, is certified as an Authorized Economic Operator (AEO), which means that, when exporting or importing, there is preferential treatment in customs procedures.
The certification was issued by the General Directorate of Customs of the Dominican Republic and one of the main requirements to have obtained this recognition was to have a video surveillance platform that guaranteed at least 90 days of recording. Thus, the necessary evidence can be provided when reviewing any situation, thus achieving corporate stability.
With the expansion of this factory, which went from 300 employees in 2011 to 2,200 after a decade, and which includes the opening of an additional location in the city of Puerto Plata, the company's technology and physical security team began to evaluate the change from its closed and private video management software to an open system, able to handle future expansion plans.
Thanks to the implementation of the XProtect® Corporate software of the company Milestone Systems, the team in charge of security in La Aurora can monitor several sites and employees from a single location; this allows you to optimize your operations and resolve labor disputes more quickly, as well as increase manufacturing standards and prevent accidents.
Operational advantages and security driven by video surveillance
Thanks to the new system, security managers can detect if employees are following the appropriate safety protocols in the warehouse or misuse them, always having adequate loss control.
At the same time, thanks to the integration that the platform has with the access control system, security personnel receive alerts of any movements within buildings and warehouses, including those that occur outside normal business hours. This allows management to ensure that people are not on the premises when they should not be.
Iturbides Zaldivar, Director of Sales and Marketing at La Aurora, states that "this was a pretty big improvement. Our use of video continues to expand and we wanted to connect and manage all of our sites from a single interface. We now have over 300 cameras in use; a variety of models that, thanks to the large number of devices that the platform accepts, allows us to choose the most convenient for each environment or objective."
For his part, Emmanuel Guillén, general manager of the integration company Aplex Security dba AWM Solutions, highlights that "the open architecture of the platform allows easy integration with different systems and manufacturers. The old system was more closed; I had to test each camera to verify its functionality. Now it's more secure and there's a list of cameras and devices that tells you if it accepts this or that functionality."
Most of the cameras in use are multi-image 4MP cameras that provide 360° coverage of the manufacturing area, with a minimum of cameras sandwiched between the rest of the buildings.
This is how La Aurora, while insisting on perfecting the art of handmade cigar making, continues to grow and expand its products in more than 80 countries around the world. All this, while optimizing your operational and business management with cutting-edge solutions.
