Access Control Case Study

Persimmon Homes

The Company

Founded in 1972, Persimmon is one of the UK’s most successful house builders, committed to the highest standards of design, construction and service. The group is made up of a network of 31 regional operating businesses, offering nationwide coverage.

Persimmon Homes logo

With brick availability subject to change and many builders turning to Europe for their bricks, Persimmon became the first UK volume house-builder to build its own brick factory in 2017, with construction of a rooftile factory following shortly afterwards.

Persimmon’s 1,900m2 facility at Harworth, South Yorkshire, can turn out 80 million bricks a year. Now the brick factory is fully operational it has the capacity to provide around 60% of Persimmons current total requirement for bricks, the tile factory once operational will provide 100% of the total requirement for roof tiles.

Persimmon Homes

Challenges

As part of the new brick and tile manufacturing project, Persimmon initially required a rugged mobile solution to provide truck-mounted devices for the vehicles used on site. The rugged devices would need to use information from Persimmon’s Microsoft Dynamics ERP to ascertain what stock to pick for collections or where to put stock from production.

To enable the trucks to travel the entire site and stay updated, a Wi-Fi solution would also be required, and this naturally progressed into CCTV requirements to monitor the site and map out the location and infrastructure for both. Persimmon’s site has cutting-edge automation requiring little or no human intervention for collections or deliveries and with up to 80 vehicle movements per day running 24/7, so the CCTV requirements were to cover all areas at all times.

Persimmon Homes - manufactured bricks

Solutions

TouchStar ATC installed a full CCTV solution with public address horns to cover the new brick factory, which is in the process of being expanded to also cover the tile factory. This included the installation of thermal cameras on columns around the site in order to create a ‘thermal curtain’ around the area.

An additional three pan, tilt, zoom (PTZ)cameras from the BOSCH IP5000 range allow further investigation and identification of any entrant to the site that breaks through the initial ‘curtain’. The expansion of the site simply involves opening the thermal curtain and adding more camera columns to expand its reach. The entire system can be monitored from one point of control backed up by TouchStar technology.

Results and Benefits

The benefits to Persimmon staff using the vehicles on a daily basis are significant, as they have no need for any paper-based information as everything is displayed on screen in the cab and managers are able to see output from production in real time. Persimmon can also track, review and playback all of the CCTV footage instantly and provide any related footage as required, providing peace of mind across the new site and also helping to prevent theft.

The single system solution has proven to be easy to use and ensures that managers have an overview of the entire site. This helps with the protection of staff working in the area and visitor safety. The solutions met the scope for the project that Persimmon had set, with everything working as needed with zero downtime on the Wi-Fi infrastructure in over two years of operation – one of the key objectives promised by TouchStar. Persimmon is now working on new notification systems and has started work on the tile factory phase of the project. TouchStar has continued to provide guidance to help Persimmon define the requirements.

Tom Chidler concludes: “We felt that TouchStar was a stable and reliable partner based in the UK with a wide range of technical knowledge and experience in the fields that the project required, the people we had dealt instilled confidence that TouchStar could meet our requirements. We would also look to TouchStar on other projects where we could utilise their service.

“Since we went live TouchStar has always been there to assist with any questions or changes we have had to the systems we have put in place. We look forward to working closely with TouchStar on future projects we have in the pipeline.”

Persimmon case study

“We were operating from several systems, some of which were nearing 30 years old. As a group, we knew our CCTV was not fit for purpose and that the latest technology would offer us so much more by way of safeguarding our people, premises, and assets. Furthermore, the latest systems also provided us with the opportunity to streamline our production processes meaning we would see much more benefits to the business operations by way of process and production efficiency improvements.”

TouchStar British Sugar Testimonial Icon

Steve Pritchard

Senior IT Business Partner , British Sugar

More Access Control Case Studies

Cepac Select TouchStar Access Control Production Image

Access Control

Fire and Security

Manufacturing

Cepac

Cepac, is the UK’s leading independent corrugated packing producer. Discover how TouchStar helped support a multi site access control rollout for Cepac, enhancing physical security, safety and control.
Learn More
British Sugar Case Study (CCTV)

Access Control

CCTV

Fire and Security

Manufacturing

British Sugar

TouchStar implemented a proximity card reading access control system across four different sites.  With Evolution software at the helm, TouchStar designed the system to fit around the existing cabling structure uniquely working on both the new and legacy systems
Learn More
TouchStar Access Control Safeguarding Aston Uni Student Accomodation

Access Control

CCTV

Education

Fire and Security

Aston University

Ensuring student safety is a priority for Aston University. The latest upgrade to the University Access Control and CCTV infrastructure successfully extended coverage by 25% enabling high-quality HD images and rapid retrieval of camera footage.
Learn More
Cushman & Wakefield

Access Control

Commercial

Fire and Security

Cushman & Wakefield

Cushman & Wakefield provide innovative commercial property services. They use access control to manage authorised entry into their own offices as well as controlling access around their IT server rooms
Learn More
Worcestershire NHS CCTV and Access Control

Access Control

CCTV

Fire and Security

Healthcare

Public Sector

Worcestershire Acute NHS Case Study

Access Control was required to manage staff and visitor entry to a new innovation hub at the Trust. Standalone CCTV was installed to safeguard staff and provide security against theft, vandalism, and anti-social behaviour.
Learn More
GBSIOT Case Study

Access Control

CCTV

Education

Intruder Alarm Systems

Public Sector

GBSIOT I Security Case Study

The development of a brand new higher technical education facility required the use of a new Access Control, CCTV and Intruder system with the goal of facilitating a safe and secure learning environment.
Learn More
Johnson Tiles bathroom

Access Control

Fire and Security

Manufacturing

Johnson Tiles

Johnson Tiles, UK’s leading manufacturer of ceramic tiles, implemented Access Control to control admission to offices, factories and IT rooms, providing a scalable and futureproof that works on the latest operating systems.
Learn More
Apollo Fire Detectors

Access Control

Fire and Security

Manufacturing

Apollo Fire Detectors

Apollo Fire Detectors specialises in quality fire detection solutions. A complete access control solution was deployed allowing them to track and control vital ‘who, where and when’ data points at specific locations around the site.
Learn More

Want to chat to a member of our team?

Get in touch for a no obligation conversation about your current situation, needs and challenges and we’ll use our market-leading experience and expertise to provide you with advice, recommendations and a clear path forward.