John Lewis stores secured by Honeywell and Orion

John Lewis opened its relocated store in Liverpool One in the summer of 2008. The £1bn regeneration of the heart of Liverpool's shopping district has brought over 1.5 million people to a revitalised city centre to experience the shops, restaurants and beautiful green spaces on offer.

The situation

John Lewis Department Stores, one of the UK's leading retail groups, has invested in Honeywell's access control and intruder detection security solution. Orion Security Solutions - an Elite member of the Honeywell Systems Integrator Programme - in collaboration with Dowling Blunt, a leading London based security consultancy, installed the system in Liverpool.

"Honeywell had a distinct advantage when tendering for this project with the WIN-PAK ® access control solution," stated Stephen Taylor, Orion Security.

This was a brand new installation owing to the fact that the entire Liverpool One complex was a new build project. As with any large retail organisation, John Lewis faces a myriad of security concerns including customer and staff protection, shrinkage, wastage and health & safety. It is therefore vitally important to have an intruder and access system that is able to react and control situations with optimum efficiency.

"The client was particularly interested in deploying a networked intruder and access system with web access that had the potential to be rolled out at other stores around the country," added Taylor. "WIN-PAK fits the requirement perfectly."

The solution

The installation took place two months before the store opened in May 2008. Orion's highly trained and skilled team of engineers needed just three weeks to install the entire system.

Honeywell WIN-PAK access control solution and Honeywell Galaxy Dimension intruder alarm system were chosen for the project to create a more robust platform with increased functionality. Functions that have traditionally been connected by physical relays and input devices are now controlled logically over a network. Full-scale system management of single or multiple locations is possible, with the ability to move, control or share resources across multiple locations simply by logging on to a system.

It is therefore vitally important to have an intruder and access system that is able to react and control situations with optimum efficiency.

"From a specification point of view, the important considerations are cost, functionality, system scalability and integration capability," confirmed Jeff Scott of Dowling Blunt Consultants. "Honeywell ticks all of these boxes with WIN-PAK so it was a logical decision to propose its installation. Orion is a first class installer and provides end-to-end design, installation and maintenance of security systems, so they are a very good partner to work with from our point of view."

The Honeywell WIN-PAK access control solution is managing three John Lewis department stores around the UK: Liverpool, Cambridge and Leicester. Each store has 18 access control doors, cashless vending and 200 alarm zones.

"The end-to-end service received from the consultants Dowling Blunt, the installers at Orion and the team at Honeywell exceeded my expectations," stated Paul Newbury, Development Manager, Business Protection, John Lewis.

The benefits

The integrated access system provides many benefits:

Cashless vending means that employees do not need to carry cash on their person whilst at work and are able to purchase food in the canteen by using their access cards. This reduces the likelihood of internal shrinkage / till theft and is managed by the WIN-PAK system controlling and monitoring the creation of cards and permissions.

Alarm zones can be armed or disarmed when a card is read - this reduces false alarms and dynamically notifies security that the individual is in an access controlled zone. Cardholders can be managed over the three store locations via WIN-PAK. This is expandable and scalable if more sites need to be added, thus proving very cost effective for John Lewis. In the event of incidents, necessary manual overrides like "lock and unlock doors", "shunt/unshunt zones" and "input points" can be managed from the WIN-PAK application.

This is an important feature in the event of a security breach or such incident. The dynamic floor plans of the store layout provide the John Lewis Business Protection team with a graphical user interface to view the alarm inputs and access

"Honeywell had a distinct advantage when tendering for this project"

control doors and the usage / incidents associated. This enables the operator to pinpoint where an incident may occur in the store.

"It's been a great investment as we are able to seamlessly expand the system in the existing sites or can add new sites without significant cost to the business." added Newbury.

Partner of choice

Orion Security Solutions is a specialist in the European retail sector and is the nominated installer for John Lewis Partnership in its new development programme. Orion Security offers complete solutions in closed circuit television, intruder alarms, access control and covert technologies. It designs, installs and maintains integrated systems for some of the UK's leading organisations both in the private and public sectors. Orion is unique in providing a bespoke retail crime risk assessment, with demographic crime information and a full Home Office approved architectural crime survey to design out crime.

Dowling Blunt was formed in 1993 by Mark Dowling and Stephen Blunt. The strength of the company comes from its professional team of Specialist Engineers and Designers, which enables Dowling Blunt to provide a design service of superior quality. Although the Head Office is in London, dedicated Security

Consultants are based throughout the UK in main cities such as Newcastle, Liverpool, Birmingham and Bristol. This enables its national clients to experience the benefits of local support. Due to its commitment to service its client case has become substantial, including many blue chip customers in retail, the public sector, education and financial organisations within the UK and Europe.

The Products