How Video Surveillance Can Benefit Your Facility

Nobody likes feeling spied on, but the benefits of setting up video surveillance can definitely outweigh the bad. From safety to savings, here are some of the reasons why you may want to consider setting up cameras for the sake of your employees and your facility:

1. They deter vandals and petty criminals.

Placing visible security cameras can serve as a visual deterrent for criminal activity. Nobody wants to commit a crime when they know they'll be caught, and video footage drastically increases the odds against them. Even if you aren't able to set up an actual functioning video camera in a specific location, a simple battery-operated "dummy camera" outfitted with a red light and a basic servo motor can be convincing enough to a potential criminal.

2. They can protect you from liability.

Security cameras have come a long way from the grainy, silent, black-and-white footage of a few decades ago. Today, even basic models are good at capturing high-quality video and audio. If you need to gather evidence in a liability case, video surveillance footage can protect you by providing a clear record of what happened. Video can be the difference between a successful defense and an expensive penalty.

3. They can provide a thorough incident record.

Modern surveillance cameras can automatically upload their recordings to a local hard drive or network server. This lets facility managers quickly search through and access the recordings from a specific day, time, and location. If there's ever a situation in which it's necessary to have a visual record of what happened that day, it's available with just a few clicks. Some camera software has meta tagging enabled. This means that you can search for something specific -- like a blue car -- and the algorithm will automatically narrow down the list of videos to those that only contain blue objects roughly the size or shape of a car.

4. They can reduce the need for security personnel.

If you currently have security personnel to patrol your facility, you probably know that their abilities are limited -- they can keep an eye on things, but they're not able to be everywhere at once and often still have to call law enforcement or emergency services to deal with problems anyway. Video surveillance effectively gives you the ability to have your entire facility under constant observation, without the need for actual security personnel. This means that facility managers can save some money by hiring fewer security guards and make their operations safer by only assigning physical guards to the highest priority areas.

5. They can let you access video streams remotely.

Video surveillance cameras can provide footage that's accessible through phones, tablets, laptops, or other devices. Even if you aren't physically in the facility, you can still keep an eye on things, look through old videos, or search for important data. If you manage multiple facilities, the ability to remotely view any of them with the tap of a button can be very helpful.

6. They can provide data.

There are a lot of ways for facility managers to collect things like traffic flow and usage data, and video surveillance can add an important dimension to that. The data provided by surveillance cameras can let facility managers know how many people are using their facility, and how. They show aspects of foot traffic patterns that other technology may miss, like bottlenecks. As more facilities have settled into remote work options like desk hoteling, cameras also provide valuable facility usage data. Facility managers can use this to optimize their spaces more effectively than relying on other metrics alone.

7. They can help troubleshoot problems.

Consider this scenario: You have automatic smoke detectors and fire suppression technology. Your facility management software tells you that a fire started in a storage area at 12:00 PM and was quickly dealt with. While this is helpful, it doesn't give you much to go on. How did the fire start? How could it be prevented in the future? An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, but that only matters when you're in a position to prevent a problem in the first place. That's where video surveillance comes in. You can check the logs to see exactly where and how the flames originated and determine how to keep a fire from starting again.

8. They can gather evidence outside of your facility.

One of the ways that video surveillance can help doesn't actually have much to do with the facility itself. If a serious crime, like an assault or kidnapping, happens where your cameras can catch it, your video feed may be able to identify the perpetrator or their vehicle and provide a record of the incident. Modern video cameras can capture images clear enough to identify faces, license plate numbers, and other important details. Video surveillance is a controversial topic. Overall, it carries more benefits than detriments. A few video cameras can make your facilities safer, save money, and provide important data for liability suits, criminal cases, and even facility optimization. If you're still on the fence, cameras are easy to set up and use.

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