The Gerolsteiner business philosophy is very much based on trust and the belief that people perform best when they feel comfortable, so the recently installed technology is geared to optimising safe and secure operations of all kinds. For this reason, the solution chosen by the company’s inter-departmental project group and its Bonn-based consultants VzM Beratung GmbH is a fully integrated video-voice system with video from Geutebruck, voice communication from Schneider Intercom and access control from Kaba.

With efficient seamless processes being the aim throughout the company, control room staff not only monitor all entrances greeting and guiding visitors while also keeping an eye on the public helicopter pad, they also handle the order processing for the many trucks and delivery vans which arrive unannounced, day and night to collect crates of bottled water. This includes logging vehicle details into the SAP system and issuing drivers with a loading bay code so that they can load up as soon as they get there.

Of course the system also provides traditional security alarm features for night-time and holidays with alarm reports and pictures displayed automatically: the latter being stored temporarily, then automatically deleted after a short time. But, there is no significant video storage. “Why have permanent recording of video? How would looking back help?” questions Heinz Lorse, the company security manager. “Here there is no long-term storage of data so recording capacity is not needed. If a standard process is carried out and completed in compliance with the rules then it is totally unnecessary to archive pictures of it.”

Gerolsteiner reports that the Geutebruck hybrid video system, which it chose over other pure IP designs because of its greater potential for seamless integration with third party equipment, works reliably and failure-free. It seems too that control room staff are very comfortable with the result, as Mr Krämer commented, “We wouldn’t now do our work any other way!“