PSIM
"Organisations are manually reviewing alarms that may reside on different systems in different user interfaces to determine if there is a situation. And depending on the setup, the operator may then have to review manuals to identify the correct standard operating procedure (SOP) once the situation is identified. All of this is time consuming and error prone." That's particularly the case where public security is concerned. It's not unknown for an entire airport to be shut down for a false alarm; someone failed to stop at a checkpoint, or went in the wrong direction, or forgot a bag. That can have a high cost not just in terms of staff time but also in terms of reputation. Using Verint PSIM, on the other hand, Detroit Metro has shrunk security management time to 15 minutes per incident. So over time, operators using PSIM will see improvement in their downtime rates owing to alerts. Customers are likely to notice, for instance where a freighter sees improved transit times through a facility. Without PSIM, security breaches are often only apparent once an emergency is already occurring. Management then has to react fast, often without enough information. A Frost and Sullivan paper on PSIM points out that integrated security systems can pick up on suspicious behaviour at an earlier stage, and that their recording capabilities ensure guards coming on-shift receive advice captured on earlier shifts. By improving the visibility of threats, PSIM enables action to be taken more quickly, and may avert threats rather than simply responding to them.
Planning ahead
Companies without PSIM may also find that they are unable to control developing situations. Ian Graham points out that Verint's software allows security and safety personnel to perform simulations in real time during an incident for decision support. For example, they can see the likely path of a fire or of gas propagation to help plan a response. PSIM also enhances control through building the standard operating procedure into the system. Kelly Fiedler says: "the pre-defined SOP is immediately brought up to further assist and can automate notification of the situation to folks that need to know." Without such a system, relevant individuals may not be notified, and there may be uncertainty in the field as to what procedures to follow. Kelly Fiedler also points out that PSIM systems can automate the streaming of real time information and video, enabling personnel to keep current, as well as automatically locking or unlocking gates or doors to control access or enable evacuation. But while it's possible to look at any security situation
and see ways that it could be worse if PSIM isn't used, it's not just at the operational level that companies that don’t move to PSIM will be affected. The decision has a huge impact on strategy and investment efficiency.
Economic benefits
Ian Graham believes that PSIM's simulation capabilities can vastly improve the bottom line. "Simulators help organisations place security devices in the best positions," he says; that might mean buying fewer cameras to cover a given area. At the same time, "organisations can run simulated scenarios in a virtual environment to test security plans against relevant threats to evaluate the quality of the plan and identify security gaps." PSIM can, for instance, visualise
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evacuation routes, estimate the time needed, and find any bottlenecks. Virtual threat scenarios can simulate crowd behaviour, or the likely flow of a flood, to anticipate outcomes more accurately; and training based on real-life experiences can help establish a higher level of incident preparedness, when coupled with PSIM's ability to run different scenarios. While such simulations can be carried out without
PSIM, the relevant information has to be integrated manually, so such an exercise tends to be a once-for-all task rather than easily reiterated to test different alternatives.
Spending wisely
Adlan Hussain says that while purchasers sometimes focus on immediate payroll savings, PSIM is an investment that can help reduce the cost of future spend significantly. "Suppose I want to make sure you spend your security budget in the best way," he says, "Where will you invest it? Using PSIM you can target spend against the weakest links in your organisation's security, because you know where they are." PSIM gives visibility into security systems, for instance,
how many door forced open alarms occur every day, and how many are considered to be high priority, requiring staff response. It can also suggest how to qualify those alarms for response, for instance by only flagging them up where motion sensors confirm an unauthorised entry. It can also show which areas of a site are most vulnerable or generate the most alerts. Adlan Hussain points out that since this is the case,
the impact of not using PSIM grows over time, every year, security spend will be that much less efficient than another organisation which is using PSIM. "If you're not analysing the data and using it effectively, you're not wasting just the money you've already spent but money you're going to spend in the future." Besides, he says: "If you don't go this route you get
locked into a single manufacturer." So taking the PSIM route frees organisations up to choose the most cost efficient hardware for access control, video and other tasks, which could make a major saving over the course of five or six years. He also believes that some projects would actually be impossible without PSIM. 'Safe city' programmes, in which local authorities work with stadiums, shopping centres, and other organisations which have security infrastructure such as CCTV, need PSIM in order to be able to integrate different security systems from different manufacturers. "The local council can hardly tell a shopping centre it needs to get new cameras," he says. With many major incidents, it's only once the incident
is over that the corporate disaster starts; who ends up paying for Deepwater Horizon is still not completely decided. Without PSIM, it's likely that important information on the handling of any incident will not be captured. Frost & Sullivan's paper points out that PSIM can collate evidence while maintaining the integrity of the original source materials, since both alarms and interventions are logged by the system. That information could well form the basis of evidence in court and could be crucial to minimising legal liability. Indeed, just having PSIM in place could be important
in determining liability. Adlan Hussain says: "Is it part of due diligence now? Not quite. But in future will it be like video surveillance - if you don't have it, you are neglectful? We're not there yet, but we could get there."
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The impact of not using PSIM grows over time, every year, security
spend will be that much less efficient than another organisation which is using PSIM
April 2012
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