If you want to know who the most capable security companies are there’s a badge of credibility worth considering – look for companies that are succeeding in the demanding and competitive field of critical national infrastructure (CNI).
Water, power generation, transport hubs, telecommunications: these are some of the most important and complex projects in the country and all parties, customer and suppliers, have to work to comply with standards of security set down in legislation. Reliance High Tech reports that it has been working on major CNI projects for several years – delivering perimeter security and biometric access control for the London Olympics, for example, and working for various utilities and on major projects in the transport sector.
One of the latest projects completed is a CCTV, intruder detection and perimeter security integration solution covering 180 sites for a major power company. It’s one of the biggest and most sophisticated integration solutions yet and it is already allowing the customer to protect and control its estate more efficiently, to manage its assets and minimise disruption to power supplies. Reliance MD Terry Sallas says the challenges of working on CNI are best summed up as ‘everything is bigger’: the security risks are higher and the consequences of failure greater, the on-site challenges are more complex and the scrutiny more stringent.
“If you can succeed on these CNI projects then it proves something about you as a company. You have to operate to very specific standards and select your technology partners very carefully. You have to handle data properly and where you come up against unforeseen problems you have to work around them in a way that keeps within clearly defined boundaries, often working with a number of stakeholders to achieve that.”
And although the boundaries may be more tightly defined, flexibility is still required. “One reason why CNI customers like working with mid-sized companies is that they have sufficient resources but can still be very nimble. For big projects customers have direct access to the Reliance board and they know that we will respond quickly.”
On various projects in recent years the company has been involved from the greenfield stage, providing security through construction, right through to completion of fully-operational infrastructure. Its work for the 2012 Olympics included protection of the construction phase and the completed site and was reckoned to be one the largest ever biometric access control installations.
In another project, an immigration centre, the company designed a fully integrated security solution encompassing access, CCTV and perimeter security. And last year its engineers developed a new solution for a remote CNI construction site, harnessing wind and solar power to run custom-made CCTV and perimeter intruder detection units. Forty of the units were installed with an expected operational life of ten years.
The fact that this solution makes use renewable energy is a further benefit and in tune with national commitments to reduce carbon emissions. “This innovation has proved very successful and more of the units are now being commissioned for the same site – I’m sure we’ll be using them elsewhere as well.”
CNI projects typically also require integration and require suppliers to work with multiple agencies. Reliance points to its specialist capability to handle these jobs. Integration – and managing diverse work streams – underpins this division’s work, the firm says. The teams are expected to handle everything, from physical security and access control, to the latest in CCTV solutions on IP networks.
Terry Sallas adds: “Our contract managers have to ensure that project milestones are always on track and of course budgets have to be efficiently controlled. There are regulations covering all aspects of what we do and that fact that we are used to complying with those rules gives us great discipline.”
So CNI can be a proving ground for operational efficiency and a seedbed for innovation. Best practice can be transferred not just between CNI projects, but also into the wider security market. For technically capable companies these CNI jobs are a hotly contested areas of work, not only good contracts in themselves, but an obvious demonstration of credibility.
