Based in St. Cloud, Minnesota, Bernick’s Beverages & Vending is a provider of beverages and foods, representing brands such as Pepsi, Dr Pepper, Miller Brewing Company and New England Coffee. It has warehouse locations to meet the needs of retail customers throughout greater Minnesota and western Wisconsin. Recently the company migrated from analog surveillance to IP video systems with help from Toshiba.
Based in St. Cloud, Minnesota, Bernick's Beverages & Vending is a provider of beverages and foods, representing brands such as Pepsi, Dr Pepper, Miller Brewing Company and New England Coffee. It has warehouse locations to meet the needs of retail customers throughout greater Minnesota and western Wisconsin. Recently the company migrated from analog surveillance to IP video systems with help from Toshiba.
Over the past century, Bernick's has grown from a horse-drawn operation to more than 500 employees, five warehouses and a fleet of 400 vehicles. Like many growing companies with multiple sites, Bernick's has been challenged to find a video surveillance system that meets its monitoring needs. Several years ago, it invested in B&W analog cameras and recorders to safeguard its warehouses, but had grown dissatisfied with their limited capabilities, errors and time-consuming maintenance.
Bernick's tasked Minco, a local systems integrator and Toshiba dealer, with the job of migrating from the existing analog system to an IP network video system.
Minco technicians were familiar with the company's warehouses and network infrastructure because they had earlier overhauled wiring and installed Cat 6 and fiber optic cable at all Bernick's locations. Minco came back to the table with a plan that called for the IP video installation to be in the St. Cloud headquarters, which was undergoing a major renovation at the time, and then move onto the company's Duluth, MN and Dresser, WI warehouse locations.
According to Jim Draper, Corporate Sales Representative for Minco Technology Center, Bernick's requirement of the project was to enable management in St. Cloud headquarters to remotely monitor all five company locations, specifically ingoing and outgoing trucks and freight. "Bernick's strategy was to centralize command at the St. Cloud offices so that all video could be remotely accessed by authorized users. They needed streaming video to know exactly what and who was coming and going in real time from the warehouses. The secondary goal was to standardize the IP equipment in all locations and fully leverage the wide area network for central management."
The first step in the project was for Bernick's IT team and Toshiba's technical support to configure an existing server at the St. Cloud headquarters as a “virtual server” to host Toshiba NVR software. Designed for use non-proprietary hardware and IT infrastructures, NVR software allows up to 32 network cameras to be connected. Users can simultaneously view, record, search, configure and export video, making NVR software a cost-effective alternative to traditional DVRs.
Toshiba tech support worked closely with the team to implement the software solution. In short order, Bernick's had access to twenty network cameras within the St. Cloud office building and inside the attached 200,000-square-foot warehouse. Each camera was assigned its own IP address and set to an inbound and outbound port on the server.
Bernick's concerns at its warehouses were well-founded. Dozens of trucks move in and out of each facility daily, as well as hundreds of visitors, customers, contractors and employees. Warehouses require constant supervision and need to be protected from internal and external threats. If an incident was to occur, the captured digital video can be E-mailed to the police for investigations, increasing the likelihood that the accused will be quickly prosecuted. Moreover, the cameras let on-site security personnel perform other important actions other than watch video monitors in an office, day-in and day-out.
"The first time we demonstrated the cameras, the people at Bernick's were truly impressed," said Tony Bennett, Minco's Telcomm and Cabling Supervisor. "We were able to zoom onto a box they could clearly read a small shipping label, although they had logged onto the network 180 miles away."
Upon completing the St. Cloud deployment, Minco brought Toshiba IP technology to the company's Duluth and Dresser warehouses. Rather than use a virtual server, however, both locations relied upon Toshiba ISP network video recorders. Designed to support network cameras, the IPS is a network-based video surveillance in a streamlined 3U chassis capable of recording at megapixel resolutions and up to 30 fps per camera.
In addition to providing surveillance in Duluth and Dresser, Minco set up a network camera inside the server rooms of each location that lets Bernick's IT department remotely monitor network equipment. In the event of a network incident, an administrator in St. Cloud can scan blinking indicator lights on the servers to diagnose the problem. Then, rather than drive several hours to either location, he can tweak the servers via a remote connection to resolve the issue.
"One of the best things about working with Toshiba is that the techs get it," said Minco's Bennet. "We have yet to see a situation where Toshiba tech support failed the customer. We've worked with several other manufacturers that have excellent equipment but don't support it after the sale. Toshiba supports its equipment before, during and after the sale so that as a dealer I have full confidence."