Businesses are returning to their premises and carrying out their COVID Secure risk assessments in preparation of reopening. It is evident that controlling and monitoring compliance is very difficult for any size of the building. Furthermore, reducing the requirement for people to touch common areas and room occupancy to maintain social distancing is essential. So, is it now time to put this to the control of the access control systems?
Contactless Access Control
Transmission of COVID by touching various surfaces is proven to be of high risk. So, by using a contactless access control system this can be reduced and in some cases, avoided. Avoiding un-hygienic common touchpoints such as door handles can be achieved with long-range readers for use with proximity cards. An access control system that uses long-range proximity card readers means that staff can avoid these hazards. In addition, utilising face recognition CCTV cameras can have the same benefit.
With the addition of a thermal temperature station, you can check each staff member’s temperature wishing to enter and deny those with raised temperatures automatically without the requirement for personnel completing this task. Should a staff member have a temperature exceeding the threshold then access would be denied, and if required an alert email could be sent to a selected email address. For complete contactless access control, having door openers fitted will mean that no contact with a door is required and once access is granted, the door will automatically open and close.
Occupancy Management
Controlling who enters certain areas within the premises has always been a function available with an access control system. However, now you may have to control the number of people in an area to maintain social distancing. This could be retail premises, offices, or factories. In fact, most businesses that have larger numbers of staff or customers. You can control the maximum number of people in multiple areas simultaneously and automatically with one in one out programming. Furthermore, the access control system can provide building managers with live visual reporting of area occupancy.
Setting areas with maximum occupancy levels and viewing the live occupancy levels will automatically stop further entrants when the maximum is reached. This can be very cost-effective when many retail premises are deploying staff at entrances to carry out this function. In the event of a user requesting access but having been denied, an email alert can be sent out to a selected email address.
COVID Secure Premises
Once the risk assessment has been carried out the design of an effective access control system can begin. The main elements of an effective access control system design that can aid the prevention of the spread of COVID are:
- Monitor that only authorised people enter controlled areas such as offices and production areas.
- Be programmed to automatically control the occupancy of supermarkets, shops, shopping malls and schools etc.
- The option to add temperature monitoring to only allow access to those people with normal body temperatures.
- Reduce the need to touch common areas and maintain social distancing by proximity and flow controls.
- If CCTV is incorporated, then if social distancing is not maintained staff will be alerted when less than the pre-set distance.
Paxton Access control systems are designed with the required functionality to achieve a COVID secure environment. Project Skills Solutions are Paxton trained installers and can offer design and installation solutions. This could be for a completely new system or modification of an existing Paxton access control system. Our case studies show our completed projects and news gives further information on access control systems.
Access Control total solutions
Due to the complexity of the access control system controlling the entire building, it requires a specialist company. One that can not only provide the design and installation and all the associated installation services such as:-
Project Skills Solutions providing total solutions for over 15 years contact us for expert advice and services.