These days, many of us are thinking about better ways to facilitate physical security in the event of an emergency. Whether caused by a human, the weather or even a fire next door, ensuring personal safety is top of mind.
For enterprises, traditional approaches to securing workers, visitors and contractors have improved markedly over time. But there's still one important gap: sophisticated, split-second, pinpoint communication and visualization of precisely where an event is occurring and who is safe on any floor of any building in your portfolio, worldwide.
Adding urgency for closing this gap is the rapid emergence of smart digital workplaces, where stylishly designed and furnished indoor neighborhoods with free-address seating are swiftly replacing cubical farms. From an emergency preparedness standpoint, the resulting fluid work styles means less certainty about your workforce's physical locations at any given moment.
That's why we're excited to join Aruba, a Hewlett Packard Enterprise company, ArubaEdge partnership – because smart digital workplaces become even smarter when they're also safe workplaces, which our ArcAngel platform helps to deliver.
Delivering on smart + safe digital workplaces
Using location awareness data from Aruba's Meridian software ArcAngel turns traditional two-dimensional emergency data into dynamic, real-time 4D visualizations.
Supplied to end users as a free mobile app that operates in any enabled facility, ArcAngel provides enterprise security teams with a feature-rich dashboard that blends data from multiple feeds for enhanced 3D situation comprehension and response. The solution also furnishes playback and simulation capabilities, contributing time as a fourth dimension, to improve emergency preparedness planning.
To get the job done, ArcAngel leverages Meridian APIs and the Meridian mobile SDK for both iOS and Android. The Meridian APIs are used to parse a building's floor plans and then our platform extrapolates the beacon positioning data it receives. In this way, we add the z axis to otherwise flat x/y data.
During an emergency, ArcAngel not only communicates with and identifies every individual in a building, but also performs virtual triage to determine who is safe, who is not, and who remains unaccounted for. Additionally, our solution draws a geofence around an affected area and stays in constant communications contact with your users within and outside of the danger zone. When appropriate to move, individuals can be guided to safety via Meridian's wayfinding capabilities within our app.
On the response side, our combined platforms supply first responders with a 3D visualization of every floor in a building, including the area affected by a situation. In cases like Hurricane Harvey in Houston, this could be the entire building. Or, for a crane accident in a dense urban metro, an event is typically contained to certain floors or building sections.
Stakeholders and individuals empowered to take effective action
Regardless of a situation's specifics, the feedback and intelligence gained from ArcAngel enable enterprise security personnel to target the response. Similarly, when emergency responders arrive, they can be guided to an incident quickly, via the optimum route.
Overall, the ArcAngel integration with Meridian speeds response times and reduces risk by empowering security teams and affected individuals. This significantly improves decision-making compared with reliance on traditional verbal communications and two-dimensional data from multiple disparate security feeds – where an incomplete understanding can lead to ineffective, or even counter-productive, actions.
Further, ArcAngel scales alongside Meridian to fit any organization. For example, a multinational energy company asked us to demonstrate the solution for more than 150 locations globally, which our technology visualizes on a single map. In addition to Meridian, the set-up also involves 70,000 Aruba Wi-Fi access points and Aruba Beacons. On the opposite end, a school district could deploy our solution in a building with a few dozen strategically located APs and Beacons.
Boost duty of care and achieve other business benefits
Beyond emergency preparedness and life safety, you can also generate a fiscal return with ArcAngel by visualizing operational data, such as facility utilization and power consumption. What's more, you can leverage our solution to negotiate a more favorable position with your insurers.
In fact, a global insurance company recently worked with us on modeling business disruption based on dozens of data points from over 100,000 buildings worldwide. Using ArcAngel, we could show them the effect of any type of event – attack, storm, earthquake – enabling the insurer to improve their planning in various regions of the world. Additionally, we validated how deploying our solution reduced risk to building owners and, hence, lowered insurance costs.
In short, by combining the power of ArcAngel and Meridian, your enterprise can significantly boost its duty of care while also addressing operational expenses to gain a variety of bottom-line benefits. This, in turn, is a hallmark of a truly smart digital workplace.
John South is CEO and President of Patrocinium, for which he designed and patented ArcAngel to form the core of the company's technology platform. In his early career, South served in the US military and as a law enforcement officer. After 9/11, South transitioned to managing large-scale contracts for U.S. federal operations overseas, becoming a recognized leader Department of State programs. Among other organizations, South has served in executive leadership and turn-around roles for strategic security enterprises such as DynCorp and Aegis Defense Services.
To find out more about becoming a smart digital workplaces leader, or staying ahead of your competition, access information about how your enterprise can leveraging the broader ArubaEdge partnership by clicking here.
