Griffith University

With a relationship spanning over 20 years, Griffith University and Gallagher Security's mutual goal of working towards an innovative and future-focused approach to security has enabled them to develop a powerful integrated security system personalised to Griffith's specific needs.

Established in 1975, Griffith University has six campuses (five physical and one digital campus) across Southeast Queensland. Across all campuses, there are 55,000 students, 4,000 staff, and 8000 contractors moving between numerous facilities.

Griffith needed a robust security solution that would manage many systems at once – such as car parks; CCTV; human resources; competencies; key management; accommodation, and bookable resources - while also providing the flexibility to scale and grow its security capability in the future.

Access control made easy

Controlling access across the multiple campuses was a core focus in the solution development as the university has several high-risk and restricted areas - such as its glycomics, criminology, and research laboratories - which have legislative requirements to meet regarding who has access to these facilities.

At the heart of Griffith's security solution is Gallagher's Command Centre, a centralised platform that provides unparalleled control of every aspect of a site.

"Command Centre allows Griffith to have peace of mind that we are delivering the highest level of security possible. We have the confidence that people have the right access, to the right areas," explains Security Operations Supervisor for Griffiths University, Deb Behrens.

The recent COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the flexibility of Griffith's new system in responding quickly to increased security needs.

Command Centre enabled security staff to easily lock down all facilities and restrict access to those deemed essential workers or those working on critical research on campus.

"It was great that our department was able to truly provide reassurance to students and staff around security and access to the campus. We could report on, and help other stakeholders understand, how many people were on site, what the building occupancy was, and if there were any hot spots," says Deb.

Innovation through integration

Key to the new security solution's success has been the ease of access control thanks to the streamlining of processes through the integration of multiple systems.

Integrating the Syllabus Plus resource management software solution with the secure operational power of Command Centre has enabled automation in the scheduling and booking of resources.

Griffith has seen huge time savings and efficiencies from the Command Centre integration with class timetables, being able to manage room resources and automatically unlock doors on rooms that are access controlled.

This has also resulted in a reduction in the number of booking errors, saving hours of guard time per day and reducing the required number of guards that need to be staffed on campus.

"The bookable resource integration via Syllabus Plus has been such a time-saver and it ensures our facilities are managed efficiently," says Griffith University's Support Services Officer, Mitch Howard.

"We have seen significant time savings with our guards, they aren’t getting as many call-outs due to timetable changes where they're needed to unlock a door. Some of our sites are quite large so it was a considerable time commitment getting around the campus, especially if there were multiple requests."