National CCTV rollout for Spotlight Retail Group - Secure Technologies
Through
its popular brands, Spotlight and Anaconda, the Spotlight Retail Group
owns one of Australia’s largest nation-wide networks of stores. All of
those stores are characterised by their vast product range, open-layout
and high volume of customers. As such, the security, protection and
safety of staff, customers, property and stock was a major challenge. To
address this, the retail giant turned to the team at Sturdie Secure
Technologies – then known as Built Security – for a complete upgrade of
its security capabilities.
The project
Assessing, planning, designing and rolling-out a
uniform CCTV system to 102 Spotlight stores and 24 Anaconda retail
outlets. Each system included cameras, network video recorders, and
store entry monitors.
The challenges
- Geographical spread. Spotlight and Anaconda
stores are found across Australia and New Zealand, therefore, the
project required:
- Coordinating and managing visits to all 126 sites
- Assessing, appointing, briefing, and managing local installation technicians
- Dispatching equipment, including long, bulky or fragile items
- Scheduling works for each site in collaboration with store managers
- Final commissioning, testing and sign-off at every location.
- Diverse infrastructure. Every store was different, with a number
already having some modern infrastructure in place, while others had
dated or un-usable equipment which needed to be fully replaced.
- Efficient use of existing infrastructure. Existing systems in each
store needed to be assessed, with new systems tailored to re-use and/or
integrate existing CCTV equipment, and provide costs savings wherever
possible.
- Timing. While stores generally required work to occur
during trading hours, they weren’t to be carried out at peak times such
as stocktake, and the weeks leading up to Halloween, Easter and
Christmas.
The approach
It was decided that, after a scope of works and
confirmation of site conditions for each store was completed, the bulk
of the preliminary design, engineering and programming would occur
centrally at our facility in South Australia.
The solution
- In-house design, engineering and testing. Our
in-house designers and engineers created site-specific designs that took
into account the conditions and layout of the 126 individual stores, as
well as the need for uniformity across of the entire network of sites.
- Communication. Regular communication was maintained with each
store manager at key times leading up to installation, to help minimise
disruption to trading or access.
- Training. On-site training was provided to store staff, and a hardcopy quick-guide was supplied to managers with each system.
- Additional work. To enhance the system, a number of monitored intruder alarm systems were also installed or upgraded.
- Extent of work. Over 1,600 cameras and 117 network video recorders were
installed, 208 kilometres of cable were used, and almost 12,000 hours
of physical labour, and 4,500 hours of management and admin work was
undertaken.
The outcome
The project was completed ahead of schedule and
under budget, and now all Spotlight and Anaconda stores across Australia
and New Zealand have modern, reliable, user-friendly CCTV security
systems have the capability for expansion and upgrade to newer
technologies in the future.
The Spotlight Retail
Group has recognised that the CCTV rollout has already been of great
benefit by providing excellent footage, which is invaluable to the
police, authorities, insurance companies, Risk Team and other internal
stakeholders.
“Sturdie demonstrated … [that] they had the capability and structure
to successfully manage the CCTV rollout within the timeline required and
their pricing was also the most competitive.”
“The team
at Sturdie were great to work with during the rollout project. Always
available, constant two-way communication and progress reporting was
provided. This made the client-side project management a smoother
process.”
Andrew Dangerfield, Project Manager Security & Asset Protection Project