Four ways smart video helps you reopen your business safely

September 10, 2020

Businesses all over the world are starting to reopen, and their top priority is keeping employees and customers safe. When it comes to achieving this, smart video is a major asset, helping you to implement social distancing, temperature checks, use of masks, and other key health guidelines more quickly, and with less manual effort.

The term ‘new normal’ is all over the place at the moment, but what does it really mean? For one thing, it looks like many employees and self-employed people will be working remotely more than ever before, and we’re also likely to see less business and leisure travel, and fewer face-to-face meetings as well – at least in the short term.

But for workplaces that require employees to be physically present on site, the new normal is all about keeping people safe and minimizing their infection risks. The same is true for organizations that operate in spaces that are open to the public, from malls and stores, to auto service centers and many, many more.

For companies like these that operate ‘bricks-and-mortar’ locations, the first step to reopening safely is to implement the most recent health guidelines – whatever those look like in your country or region. These may include social distancing requirements and the use of face masks, to conducting temperature checks at key entry points.

The good news for your business is that smart video technologies can help with many of the challenges of implementing safety guidelines while reopening your business.

Here’s how:

1. Protect staff with touch-free access control technology

Before the COVID-19 pandemic, many organizations used traditional access control and time attendance systems such as ID card swiping, PIN codes, and fingerprint scans. With all of these technologies, staff are required to touch shared surfaces or devices, which increases infection risks as you return to business.

By moving to touch-free access control and time attendance solutions, you can dramatically reduce infection risks for your workforce. One example of such a solution is Hikvision’s MinMoe temperature screening terminal, which provides skin-temperature screening, mask detection, and access control capabilities – with no need for employees to touch a shared screen or device.

2. Meet social distancing and occupancy requirements more effectively

One of the best ways to flatten the curve and protect employees and members of the public is to ensure that crowding never occurs inside your premises, and that people maintain a ‘safe’ distance from one another at all times. While this kind of monitoring is very difficult to achieve with manual methods, smart video can automate the process to minimize your infection risks as you reopen.

In particular, smart video enables accurate, automated people-counting, which is a key feature of Hikvision’s Flow Control solution. By keeping accurately tracking the number of people entering your premises, our solution can send a real-time alert if your capacity limits are ever exceeded. You can also deploy digital signs at entrances to show customers how many people are inside and to reassure them that all staff and customers are wearing masks and taking other relevant safety measures.

People counting can also be integrated with Hikvision 3D modelling technology to ensure your customers and staff stick to social distancing guidelines. You can also change thresholds, rules, and procedures quickly and easily, which means our technologies can adapt easily to fast-changing guidelines in different jurisdictions.

Click here to find out more about Hikvision’s social distancing and occupancy solutions.

3. Entering your facilities or stores safely

To reopen safely, you need to ensure, as much as possible, that everyone entering your premises is healthy. For this reason, many national administrations require reopening businesses to take the temperature of everyone coming in the door, which can be a time-consuming and costly process if you try to do it manually. As an additional challenge, manual temperature checks could expose members of staff to hundreds of people a day, potentially increasing their risk of infection to unacceptable levels.

To reduce the time, cost, and risks associated with manual temperature checks, smart video incorporates thermal imaging technologies. This feature, which is available with a number of different Hikvision cameras, immediately sends an alert if a person entering your area or building has an elevated skin temperature. As a result, you can take further steps to check the body temperature of that person using clinical measurement devices.

Hikvision thermal imaging solutions are proving particularly valuable in ‘high-footfall’ locations such as transport hubs, warehouses, and shopping malls. It is worth mentioning that temperature measurement accuracy can be affected by many factors and it is recommended that end users measure in an indoor environment, without drafts or direct sunlight, and away from radiant heat sources. Hikvision works closely with global partners, not only to sell our products, but also to provide training and best practices for best-practice product installation and operation.

Our temperature screening solutions are available in multiple formats to meet a range of monitoring needs, including touch-free temperature screening terminals, airport-style metal walkthrough gates, and handheld cameras.

4. Checking that everyone wears a mask (who should be wearing one)

Many national administrations around the world now agree that face masks are effective when it comes to reducing COVID-19 infection risks. However, in areas and facilities that welcome hundreds or even thousands of people each day, monitoring compliance with mask-wearing guidelines can be difficult, or even impossible.

With smart video technology, you can automatically detect people who attempt to enter specific areas or facilities without a mask. To achieve this, Hikvision has integrated algorithms that allows our thermal cameras and MinMoe access terminals to see if a person’s nose and mouth are exposed, and therefore uncovered, and send an alert in real time to your security team.

Reopen your business the safe way with Hikvision

In this short blog, we’ve looked at how Hikvision smart video technology can help you reopen your business in the safest way possible. In particular, we’ve seen how our solutions can help you to automate monitoring for social distancing guidelines, streamline temperature checks at points of entry, and ensure that masks are worn in line with local requirements.

To find out more about our smart video solutions and how they can help you maximize safety for your employees and customers, Read about Hikvision’s Back-to-Business package.

You can also get in touch to discuss your specific back-to-business needs and we’ll be happy to help.