Amarijn
In the dynamic world of control rooms, MPL stands out as a progressive player. The Barneveld-based company is making the future of building management possible today. With smart solutions for (fire) safety, security, access management and data management of smart buildings. As one of the first alarm centres in the Netherlands, MPL decided to introduce Vaidio to its customers. What are the experiences? In this use case, we take you through MPL’s story.
Control Room As a Service
Jimmy Boeijen has been with MPL for more than 10 years and, as General Manager, is responsible for managing the MPL alarm centre and MPL Easy Safe Integrations. ‘As MPL, we have a unique range of services within the alarm centre world. From our own alarm centre, we control all our customers’ building-related installations. We do this by using a Physical Security Information Management System (PSIM) (WinGuard from Advancis) which we offer ‘as a service’.
We set it up entirely specifically for the customer, effectively creating a corporate alarm centre. Customers can fully manage this corporate alarm centre themselves and forward alarms to the MPL control room at the push of a button. This creates a hybrid solution that allows us to have and keep a grip on unauthorised access, fire, burglary or abnormalities in climate control and other technical installations. We find it important to have an innovative offering for our customers. That is why we are looking for innovative solutions every day.’
The fight against false alarms
According to Jimmy, the high number of false alarms from camera systems was the reason to look for a solution like Vaidio. ‘Within the control room world, it is well known that cameras generate a very high number of false alarms. It is often assumed at installation that a camera connection is as stable as a PIR. But this really needs extra attention and a different approach. And even though more and more cameras are equipped with on-edge AI, the number of false alarms remains high and the control room is flooded with them. In the search for a solution that was more accurate, we ended up with VAIBS and Vaidio.’
High accuracy benefits customers
The final deciding factor for the choice had mainly to do with Vaidio’s high accuracy. ‘The strength of the Vaidio platform, is that the system is getting smarter. It learns, after proper approval of course, from all the images it analyses. This makes accuracy high.’
MPL encourages its customers to use the Vaidio software to ultimately spend less money on alarm follow-up. Positioning the camera correctly on site once is the key. If that positioning is right, then Vaidio does the rest. Jimmy: ‘We have a large number of customers connected to our control room who spend a considerable amount on following up false alarms. With Vaidio, this number is greatly reduced, so the customer ends up losing less.’
Integration with WinGuard and hosting in the cloud
Before MPL started working with Vaidio, an integration between Vaidio and WinGuard was achieved, by joint technology partner Advancis. This made the entire functionality of Vaidio available within WinGuard. Jimmy: ‘When the integration was complete, we worked with VAIBS to arrange for Vaidio to be available to us in a cloud environment. This makes it easy for us to offer this service to our customers. Furthermore, they do not need an on-site server to run the intelligence on their cameras. We simply connect the cameras to the cloud, where the image analysis takes place. This greatly reduces the turnaround time of projects with Vaidio.’
Operators work within one application
Within the MPL control room, operators work with Vaidio every day. According to Jimmy, the platform provides them with several advantages: ‘Because Vaidio is fully integrated within WinGuard, the operators work from a single application and do not need any separate knowledge of Vaidio. Vaidio simply transfers the reports to WinGuard. This is then also where operator receives the notification. It is also possible from WinGuard to link cameras to Vaidio and look back at events to verify a notification. Based on the alerts generated by Vaidio, we can also initiate various actions within WinGuard that have to do with, for example, access control or other services to and within the managed building.’
Meldingen die er toe doen
Within the MPL control room, Vaidio is also embraced by operators. ‘For operators, Vaidio works extremely well. When an operator receives many false alarms, there is always a danger that an alarm will be perceived as unnecessary. Then human action is a weak link in the process. Vaidio prevents this by showing only reports that matter. We vouch for the safety of our customers. That is more challenging when we receive too many false alerts. Fortunately, Vaidio provides a solution here,’ Jimmy says.
Efficiënter omgaan met beveiligingsbudgetten
Asked if Jimmy would recommend Vaidio, he is clear: ‘I would definitely recommend Vaidio. The system eliminates the number of false alarms. This greatly reduces the variable costs for a control room service. This way, you deal efficiently with your security budget.’
