Site Surveys – Planning for
Your Customer
Most of us have heard the old saying “Prior planning prevents poor
performance” and nowhere is it more important than planning out a Video Surveillance System & Access Control System. Taking time upfront to make sure your survey is complete
and accurate will save great amounts of time, money and energy for your
installers, making both you and the customers bottom line better.
Making the sale and picking the right product are only parts of the puzzle.
Camera placement, lens selection, mounting options and cable planning are all
equally important to the success of a job. These elements will also help you
gain the loyalty of your customer. If you’re a salesman, project manager or an
estimator, at some point you’re going to have to put a project together and it
will help if you know what to look for.
Of all the various parts of a CCTV system & Access Control System, the
one thing the customer is going to notice above all else is a picture that doesn’t
meet his expectations. He won’t care what kind of cable you used to get the
picture in front of his eyes, nor will he worry about whether there’s a space
in between each piece of equipment mounted in a rack. But he will know right
away if he can’t see what he thought he was going to see or if what he can see
is out of focus.
Picking camera and lens combinations are one of those areas that have become
far easier over time. More sensitive cameras and varifocal lenses have taken
most of the work out of the selection process. EM Lock installation has taken
most of the work out of the selection process. It is still important however to
have a good grasp of the concepts.
Focal length of a lens refers to two main things, the distance a lens can
see clearly and the width of the scene a particular lens can see. Focal length
is rated in millimeters. The lower the millimeter number, the wider the scene.
As you go higher in millimeters, the lens becomes more telephoto and the scene
width is greatly reduced. Taking the time to pick the right camera and lens
combination will make for a smoother install and a happier customer and reduce
the need for return visits.
One aspect of a site survey and system design that is frequently over looked
is the environment itself. Not only conditions like temperature and weather
extremes, but also physical aspects of the environment. I was recently out at a
customer’s site looking at a parking lot through the view of his cameras. The
customer told me the view was good now but in the spring when the trees bloom
he cannot see anything. His system was installed in the winter when all the
trees were bare. Please remember that trees grow. Those newly planted saplings
will become towering oaks in a few years. Make sure they won’t impede your view
now or ever.
Physical obstruction aren’t only limited to the great outdoors. Warehouses
are notorious for large shelving and stacks of product. Shelves and products
are subject to reconfiguration at any time. Make sure your camera placement is
high enough so that it doesn’t get blocked by a stack of boxes.
It seems obvious to take things like that into consideration but I can tell
you it doesn’t always happen that way. In times like we are experiencing today
the need to get in and out of a project quickly becomes very important to the
bottom line, but we can’t let it compromise the integrity of our system design.