French retail chain Hyper U is using an access control solution from Access Control Technology (ACT) at one of its largest stores, a 4.94 acre (20,000-square meter) property with 200 full-time personnel at the western town of Savenay in the Loire Estuary. The integrator for the project is Nantes-based 2Acom, who installed the equipment in two phases to cover the store's 60 doors. The equipment is working in conjunction with intruder alarms, video surveillance, and perimeter intrusion protection.
French retail chain Hyper U is using an access control solution from Access Control Technology (ACT) at one of its largest stores, a 4.94 acre (20,000-square meter) property with 200 full-time personnel at the western town of Savenay in the Loire Estuary. The integrator for the project is Nantes-based 2Acom, who installed the equipment in two phases to cover the store's 60 doors. The equipment is working in conjunction with intruder alarms, video surveillance, and perimeter intrusion protection.
Hyper U wanted to control and log movement of staff around the shop floor, office block, delivery areas, car parks, lifts, stock rooms and perimeter. The client also needed a hierarchical rights management system so that staff would only access certain groups of doors associated with their job function and at appropriate times of day according to their shift. Hyper U found the flexibility they needed in ACT's door stations, door controllers, readers and access control software.
The software allows supervisors to create 71 user groups, so promoting complete visibility of staff movement and enhancing health and safety at a store with long opening hours where there is activity 24 hours a day. While the human resources department can intervene if workers are not in the right place when they should be, the access control system also contributes to staff welfare by creating an audit trail. This ensures that workers do not become stranded in remote areas or spend excessive amounts of time in locations such as refrigeration rooms.
The door security also ensures that prospective thieves remain on the shop-floor and are denied entry to areas where high-value items are stored. It should be noted that French supermarket retailers make extensive use of the concession system whereby there is a gallery of ‘boutique' suppliers of items such as smart phones and tablet computers operating under the same roof. Areas that are commercially sensitive (e.g. cashier's office, luxury electrical goods) as well as loading bays where the presence of vehicles puts a premium on safety have a twin level of security with both keypads and proximity readers being used.