Systems Integration Enhances ID Management
- By Ralph C. Jensen
- Jun 01, 2011
Roger Williams University is an independent liberal arts university on the New England coastline in Bristol, R.I. University officials wanted to become more efficient, focusing on time-consuming and costly key management and security access.
Enter Johnson Controls, which worked with university officials to implement an ID management solution. At hand was the integration of existing disparate systems—physical security access assignments were automated using a role-based policy engine.
The customer is satisfied with this method because it reduces operational costs and avoids the need for additional staff.
As with any university, Roger Williams must provide students, staff and faculty with the correct access to facilities while maintaining the security of all people, university property and facilities. The university also has to consider numerous changes in student course-loads and housing assignments, including faculty, staff and contractor access—manual key management, either digital or physical.
“The new construction drove us to take a fresh look at our business practices—what we do and how we do it,” said Joseph Pangborn, vice president and chief information officer at Roger Williams. “Rather than overwhelming our existing staff or adding staff to manually manage security access assignments, we wanted to find a better and more efficient way. The new buildings, which were all designed with electronic access, presented the opportunity.”
Part of the challenge that Johnson Controls faced was that the university had recently undergone significant capital projects while modernizing and right-sizing the university. Some of the facilities targeted for the systems integration were the marine and natural science building, the global heritage hall academic building, a 347-bed dormitory, an admissions and alumni center and associated infrastructure, and parking.
Johnson Controls employed the Quantum Secure SAFE product, which serves as an interface between the P2000 security management system and the enterprise resource planning system, so information is housed where it needs to be and when it needs to be there. The P2000 system is updated automatically, allowing appropriate access, when changes are made to the database that houses information for assignments for faculty and staff.
The disparate systems the university used previously required manual programming of access assignments. This meant that when students enrolled in their courses and housing assignments were recorded in the university’s ERP security, staff had to manually program access rights into the system to give them rights.
“This manual process required a lot of man-hours spent programming and reprogramming credentials into the security system,” said William Dallaire, master locksmith at Roger Williams. “With the SAFE system in place, we are now able to use that time for other ongoing tasks inherent to the university, such as alarm upgrades, securing additional entrances and replacing orre-keying necessary physical lock hardware.”
The upside is that 40 percent of the system became automated, eliminating up to 95 percent of the errors associated with manual processing. Cycle time for physical access change requests also improved.
The P2000 system was originally installed in 2006 by Johnson Controls and now will be expanded to the new facilities. It provides access monitoring and control for all 65 buildings on the campus, where more than 500 card readers and more than 50 surveillance cameras have been installed and integrated with the system. A Johnson Controls Metasys building management system also provides monitoring and control of HVAC equipment campuswide.
The university included an identity management system that helps maintain and improve internal policies and procedures related to the physical security of all staff, property and assets. It also improves the accuracy of access assignments by allowing only the right people in certain places and only at certain times. This improves security and accountability.
In addition, the university has implemented a five-swipe policy at the dormitories: Students are required to swipe their card first to access the building, then again for their floor. Three more swipes get them access to their wing, suite and room.
“Managing this type of access scheme manually would be astronomical and any errors would quickly be compounded,” Dallaire said. “When students opt to change housing, we can quickly and accurately change housing assignments and even allow them access to both dorm rooms for a limited time during their move.”
It’s a brilliant security system that also offers an efficient and accurate access control solution. It’s as important to student security as it is to academic buildings. It also allows the university to authorize groups within the system, such as contractors, who will be on the campus for a specific period of time, at specific points and dates. When time expires, their access is restricted.
This article originally appeared in the June 2011 issue of Network-Centric Security.
About the Author
Ralph C. Jensen is editor-in-chief of Security Products magazine.