Nedap Deutschland: Aeos access control at Dow Corning in Wiesbaden. It is one of the most modern factories in the Dow Corning family: the Wiesbaden location was established in 1983 and has shown constant growth since then. This continued success stems from its power of innovation, its pioneering spirit and high quality. The access control system at this location comes from Nedap. Matthias Erler of GIT SECURITY + MANAGEMENT took a look at it.

Silicon and everything that you can make out of it – the man in the street rarely ever dreams of this. And in fact, it starts with his morning shower (silicon is found in shampoo and it waterproofs the edges of the shower cubicle), plays a role in the washing machine (as most washing powders contains silicon). And in every car around four kilos of silicon can be found.

But beyond everyday life on Earth the material is also used to fulfil extremely important functions – even on Mars: the “Mars Rover Spirit” was protected by silicon-covered airbags when it landed on the red planet. Wiesbaden is a birthplace of such materials. It is produced here by Dow Corning and finds application in lubricants, liquid silicon rubbers, adhesives and casting compounds.

The factory here is considered within the concern as the “gateway to the East”: customers in central and Eastern Europe and Russia are served from here and sales offices in Moscow and Istanbul are also supported. The IT site-coordinator, Hans-Jürgen Bollig, is responsible for the new access control system project, and thereby for the phased improvement of security at this site.

One part of this project was the renewal of the access control system. Its eight-year-old predecessor was no longer state-of-the-art, in particular with respect to hardware support, its low flexibility and missing features. Three competitors were in the race for the replacement – the winner was the planning company Lorenz Datensysteme with the Aeos system from Nedap. Hans-Jürgen Bollig was particularly impressed by the “good value for money, the variability of the system and by the real efforts of the employees on site”.

Integration in the Current System

It was critical for Dow Corning that the existing columns could still be used, and also the cards that were currently in use. The emphasis was solely on access control and not time and attendance control. This latter subject is organised for the company on a global basis via a SAP system at the headquarters in Midland, USA, that gathers all production working time and even performs salary calculation worldwide.

Employees have Legic-card barcodes for this purpose and to replace these would have been too costly. Nedap offered with Aeos the simplest option here, also with potential for tomorrow. IP cameras from Mobotix are also linked to their Aeos Faces interface for surveillance of the premises outside working hours.

Hans-Jürgen Bollig particularly praises the logical construction of the software as well as the simple and easily created templates for access management.

Decentralised Intelligence

Bollig also found the multi-client capability of the system a convincing argument in its favour. This permits expansion to other company offices via one central server. Everything is clearly laid out: all cameras and door locks are modular and adaptably incorporated into Aeos Faces. A total of 12 readers are in use at the Wiesbaden Dow Corning plant: they control access, for example, at the main gate, in the employees car park and at the delivery entrance.

Passes are administered centrally at the reception desk. The reliability of Aeos is also a distinguishing feature: the system is built using intelligent network technology i.e. it utilises the principle of decentralised intelligence. All access authorisations and programmed events are defined and processed at the lowest level of the system. The functionality of the system and a high level of reliability are thereby guaranteed, independent of the availability of the network and the server.

Additional security is provided out of working hours by automatic door-locking that is also incorporated into the access control system.

Security, Hall 3, Stand 612

Contact:

Nedap Deutschland GmbH,
Straelen, Germany
Tel.: +49 2839 568236
Fax: +49 2839 568238
kester.brands@nedap.com
www.nedap-aeos.com