Security on Screen spoke to Craig Evans, UK managing director of Immix, at The Security Event recently, and asked him about industry trends, as well as developments in the company’s specialist area of monitoring stations and situational oversight.
In our exclusive interview, he outlines the evolution of the products to be integrated as site requirements from end-users react to a changing threat landscape, and he offers us insight into the operational needs of a large monitoring station (both human and technological), as well as broadening the perspective to include first-responders.
Craig Evans comments: “It’s not a coincidence that Immix has the largest market share in our sphere and also the largest integration library in terms of equipment with which we can interact. If a monitoring station is approached by a potential integrator customer who is already using a communication product (possibly a smaller or niche solution) it’s likely that Immix will have integrated with the product before and have an out-of-the-box interface. We can credibly claim to be ahead of our competitors in terms of that kind of responsiveness.”
He continues: “The breadth of our offering and compatibility with third-party products reporting into us means that the operator experience for the Immix customer at the monitoring station is reassuringly uniform. The same familiar interface produces savings in staff training. And the smoother the integration, the more we are able to focus on useful offerings such as giving the end user meaningful management and logistical information.
“We have embedded AI partners so an alarm – be it any kind of actual or threatened intrusion – can come in and be assessed by the intelligence within our partners’ products and raised to an operator if deemed fit. More technically, that’s if a rule in an algorithm has been met. If the alarm has been set off by a human intruder – there is fine calibration to distinguish between a human and wildlife – the alarm is shown to an operator and the intruder can be pre-emptively warned away before they do damage and even at a stage when they have been just loitering inappropriately. High-resolution facial images that meet court evidential standards are a given. That is what our monitoring station customers are paying their subscription for.”
Evans stresses that managers at Immix have been at the coalface themselves. By this, he means that many of his senior leadership team colleagues have built and run monitoring stations themselves in past lives. This means that when an Immix user needs to warn people away and call police or other first responders (or despatch their own security officer) there are simple proven ways of doing so that ensure they have the best possible situational information.
He adds: “The Immix interface allows new staff at a monitoring station to quickly learn the layout of sites they are protecting with interactive schematics. They can draw boundaries on their screens and there is a myriad of ways of visualising the site including astute use of Google Maps.”
Immix can communicate fully to the market about its interaction with technology vendors, (see case studies), and is proud of its collaboration with world-leading brands.
However, there is a need for discretion about the end-user sites that are protected by monitoring stations. But Evans can broadly sketch a major growth area; solar farms which, by their nature, are remote and contain high-value components. Even if an intruder is set on committing theft or vandalism, there is a duty of care from the monitoring station to protect people from high voltages.
Immix sells in 48 countries with a UK office in Swansea, Wales, and US headquarters in Tampa, Florida. The company is the largest supplier of monitoring station software in the US and dominates the UK market with up to 90 percent of the country’s stations opting for Immix solutions.
For a final soundbite, Evans sums up the Immix offering: “The clue is in the last three letters of the company name. We are mixing, interfacing, aggregating to give the customer (and crucially the customers of the monitoring stations) a seamless experience with optimum functionality.”
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