The Pandemic

The world was caught unprepared for Covid-19 and its profound consequences on public health and the economy. In just the first six months following its discovery, the highly contagious virus was able to infect over ten million people globally, and has been responsible for at least half of a million deaths around the world in as much time.

Since the outbreak, the pursuit of workplace wellness has dramatically accelerated. Workplace wellness encompasses the physical health and safety of its employees, also how they can successfully perform their jobs and how they interact with one another.

Workforce Vulnerabilities

Most jobs (office, engineering, construction, government, etc..) can be broken down into daily tasks that have at least some element of human interaction – this may act as a channel for the virus to spread. Jobs that involve these tasks not only expose employees to risk of infection, they can also increase the spread of the virus by acting as a distribution network for it.

The challenge is in reformatting these jobs to keep our workforce healthy and productive. Checking temperatures at entrances, maintaining social distancing during working hours, assisting health professionals with contact tracing – these are just a few examples of what offices will need to do in order to reopen safely.

Enhancing Building Automated Systems with Edge AI

Edge AI driven video analytics from Gorilla provide reliable solutions to slow the spread of the virus. Integrating and deploying facial recognition access control, attendance systems, and smart parking solutions with current building automation systems to automatically monitor compliance in many ways are now possible. To name a few:

Performing screening for fevers and masks at entrances and other key zones.
Using crowd detection in cafeterias and break rooms to ensure proper social distancing is followed.
Assisting health authorities with link analysis & contact tracing when positive cases come to light.

Post-Pandemic Area Management solutions from Gorilla can also help maintain public safety and order – something that will prove to be a challenge as lockdown measures result in closed businesses and greater economic hardship for many people.

Gorilla’s offerings of behavior analytics, intrusion detection, loitering detection, direction violation detection, fighting detection — these can all help minimize the prospect of looting, vandalism, robberies. Gorilla is reaching out to assist law enforcement in preserving public order during this trying time.

While the health crisis is far from over and the full impact of the virus and global lockdown is still to be seen, we know we will get through this. We will return to our workplaces as they are re-tooled into safer and smarter environments – and Gorilla will help get us there.

Visitor Management Systems: There Must Be a Better Way

Giving a schedule of expected visitors to reception is a common part of day-to-day operations for most business professionals. Typically, the only two pieces of information you pass to reception is the visitor’s name and what time you’re expecting the visit. Have you ever wondered if there’s a better system to manage/control visitor and guest access?

Corporations are constantly seeking out and embracing new technologies to enhance their visitor management systems. For many businesses, visitors no longer need to exchange their ID for a visitor badge – some corporations will register your visit prior to the meeting and the system will log it. This helps corporations monitor foot traffic and also provides a layer of safety to employees, yet still leaves some questions about the visitors unanswered.

The Challenge of Current Visitor Management Systems

More advanced visitor management systems enable us to track who will be visiting today, tomorrow and in the following weeks. However, let’s not ignore that the receptionist still needs to interact with and identify the visitor using limited information. After reaching out to multiple businesses and building managers in professional spaces, we discovered that there are even more issues that arise when using a system like this:

Visitors provide the wrong information when scheduling a visit.
The visitor is actually an unwelcome guest but provides false information in order to sneak into the office.
An ex-employee leaves the company on bad terms and has threatened to come back to the office and make a scene.

The above are the most common and real situations that happen in office buildings all over the world. What can be done about these oversights?

With recent improvements in biometric and facial recognition technology, there is now a better way to secure corporate safety on the front line and streamline visitor management.

Smart Access Control for Visitor Management

A quick internet search shows that more technology providers are offering biometric solutions like fingerprint scans to improve physical access control. We are no longer limited by using pin codes or RFID cards to swipe in and get building access. Businesses, however, are not able to collect biometric information prior to guest visits. Enter facial recognition.

This new approach to access control is innovative and straight forward. This smart access control system operates something like this: the staff inputs the visitor’s contact information along with an image of their face prior to the visit, the system then logs the profile and automatically issues a badge for the visit, and when the visitor’s face is scanned for identification & verification upon arrival, they are admitted to the building. This technology means no more incorrect visitor information, no more impersonators gaining entry, and ensured safety from disgruntled employees. To add even more value, the person at reception doesn’t need to be there to identify the visitor anymore as the entire process has become automated.

Smart Access Deployment for Visitor Management

Leveraging facial recognition and access control concepts gives us flexibility to transform outdated visitor management systems into proactive ones. Smart access control deployment is something that Gorilla Technology leads the field in and is well-versed in assisting companies making this transition. Using facial recognition in video analytics to improve visitor management systems can be applied in many scenarios.

By utilizing Gorilla edge AI technology to realize truly smart buildings, we can now create visitor management systems that give better guest experiences while increasing safety for everyone.

Gorilla Blog

Posts tagged: Smart Access