Applications of Access Control System

eSSL Security

The main benefits provided by Access Control Systems are protecting assets and safeguarding personnel. There are however many applications that a comprehensive access control system can support.

Visitor Management: The ability of reception staff to identify and monitor visitors can be greatly enhanced by the use of an integral visitor management system. Here, electronic pass cards are issued to visitors, which enable them to access those areas that they have permission to visit. Each card can be printed with the visitor’s photograph for increased security, or standard cards can be issued and then automatically captured on exit so that they can be recycled, thereby reducing costs.

Time and Attendance: These systems use proximity card technology to record employee and contractor hours and process this information against shift patterns. This information can then be fed through to the company’s payroll system or through a contractor management system.

Personnel Tracking & Incident Reporting: Knowing where members of staff are at any given time can help ensure that, in the event of an incident, those involved can be quickly identified. This can also deter would-be thieves. Some access control systems also provide individual cardholder tracking data to track down key staff members such as First Aid staff whenever they are needed urgently.

Evacuation Mustering Systems: An access control system that keeps account of staff locations within a building can also be used as an evacuation mustering system. At the point of an emergency evacuation, all members of staff and visitors present within the building are on record, a print-off of which can be used for roll call at assembly points. Also, readers can be installed at the assembly points so that evacuated personnel can register their presence, thereby highlighting missing staff members.

Special Duty and Safety Staff Monitoring: Some access control systems can monitor the numbers of specific categories of staff present within a controlled area. This provides the ability to ensure that the required number of key staff members such as safety officers are maintained within the area by raising an alarm whenever this number falls below the required minimum level.

Capacity Control: A staff counting and monitoring system can be applied to prevent the number of personnel within a controlled area from exceeding a prescribed safety limit. Here, the system can refuse entry to further personnel whenever the limit has been reached.

This type of control can also apply to vehicles crossing bridges, entering tunnels or simply operating in high-risk environments. A similar concept may also be applied to the prevention of pedestrians from entering an area when certain types of vehicles or machinery are present.