June 20, 2011 at 22:59Office theft protection system. Anticonsulting
I was engaged in the implementation of RFID systems, and a little less often than always, the clients - the owners of the warehouse or production had the idea: let us make protection against theft in our office based on this magic technology.
I want to tell you why in most cases I did not advise them to rush into this (although, of course, this would be a great opportunity to sell them a bunch of expensive iron and go on vacation).
And you, before you seriously think about it, read (or let your leadership read it).
Before continuing, I recall once again that all of the following applies to the office , but in no case a warehouse or a store - the conditions are completely different there.
A certain employee sees poor (or good) lying material value, begins to “suck under his stomach”, and sooner or later he puts the thing in his briefcase and takes it home, where she takes her place in the junkyard of his combat trophies. From such theft, at least the anti-theft system and vigilant security can save. It is at the very least, for most of the items stolen in this way are very easy to discreetly carry out and impossible to personify. However, the losses from such thefts are cheap.
An accounting object that is in good “health” is recognized as defective, a cancellation procedure is carried out, and the thing is taken to its cottage. This can only be done by those who have the power to write off, or is conspiring with such people.
Almost nothing will save from such theft, since the removal of the object and its disappearance will be completely legal, and, moreover, not everyone will suspect this theft.
The use of errors in maintaining material accounting.
In most organizations, where I have been, material accounting is carried out on the principle of "who is what much". Inaccurate accounting of certain things makes it easy to take them away, and with an annual inventory, no one will notice this, since according to accounting everything will be in order as before. Below I will talk about these errors.
To carry out such theft, you need to know at least once how exactly certain objects are recorded, and if there is a “bug” in their jurisdiction, then figure out how to use it.
Removal of items can be prevented by vigilant security, but anti-theft electronics can be powerless here due to the same accounting errors.
Bring your bad and cheap thing, and instead take away the good and expensive.
Most often, computers undergo such “transplantation” - from there they pull out good video cards, memory, hard drives, even processors, and instead they put outdated, smaller, speed.
It is difficult enough to detect theft, which can be detected only by accident, and then, if you keep a good and meticulous record. But if employees receive a good salary, you can not be afraid of this. Those who like to keep workers on a starvation diet will suffer much more.
This is when the boss appropriates part of the property purchased at the expense of the company. Thriving all the time. Nothing will save from this except the anger of the shareholders (greetings to Navalny) and the employees who decided to go to the slaughter for the sake of truth.
From the above review, it becomes clear that controlling thefts in the office is an order of magnitude more difficult than in the store, and it seems to help not only direct anti-theft measures, but indirect ones that, at first glance, are not related to property protection.
Modern society seeks to automate everything that can be automated, and, in some cases, this is good. But this case is just that when in response to a question about the need for automation instead of the loud “YES !!!” it would be more correct, after a little hesitation, to answer “wait.”
Obviously, the system of automatic anti-theft protection consists of checkpoints equipped with a certain “electronic instinct” and live security guards, and sensors placed on the property and allowing the “electronic instinct” to react to the passage of these things through the checkpoint.
In addition, in the premises where the property is located, video cameras are located that help to detect or - much more often - retroactively confirm the theft.
This is how the theft is organized in all stores.
What will happen to such a system when it gets to the office?
The “electronic instinct”, whether it be a radio antenna or an acousto-magnetic receiver, will work only when the corresponding transponder enters their field. And, not only will it fall, but it will also be successfully interviewed, despite interference and all kinds of shielding.
This means that before taking out the property, transponders will not be pulled from it and they will not be screened with a "thick piece of iron".
In stores, this happens (in percentage terms) not so often, because cameras, witnesses around, the absence of tools (screwdrivers, wire cutters, shielding boxes, etc.) interfere with this, you cannot go in with bags, and you don’t have time for that there are not so many people.
However, in the office, the potential thief has every opportunity to work on the elimination of anti-theft transponders: there is time, and tools, and the ability to bring in and out pretty impressive bags, and the time when you can be left without witnesses.
And having recorded on the camcorder how the person took the object and went, it is almost impossible to find fault with this fact (except in very exotic cases, for example, the secretary climbed up to unscrew the lights on the ceiling and put them in a bag).
In addition, the removal of many items outside the office does not mean theft.
Sale managers take out laptops and many other things for trips to presentations, engineers take out laptops and tools for customer service, employees are often not forbidden to take work home.
Therefore, the question of automatic protection against theft in the office today can be answered only in two ways:
1) Complete tightening of nuts: total inspection of things of employees at the checkpoint at the entrance and exit, the ban on entry and exit with bags, the ban on the use of personal property at work and working - outside the office. With this method, automation does not make sense, since the main load is borne by live guards.
2) Indirect measures that do not directly prevent theft, but increase the degree of responsibility of employees for the safety of things and reduce their desire for theft. Automation is also useless here, because we approach the problem from a completely different perspective.
The choice between one method or another is made on the basis of an analysis of the incidents of theft and the value of what could potentially be stolen under the current level of protection.
In most cases, there is no reason to resort to tightening the nuts. It, although effective, but it greatly complicates the work and is simply offensive to the staff.
We will have to talk about indirect measures separately, because there is a lot of things that managers don’t know about, and accountants know, but prefer not to remember.
It is very commonplace and very difficult to practice.
Here we are not talking about the fact that those who receive 60 thousand should start paying 90.
Just do not keep workers on a starvation diet. If people are only paid enough for food, they will certainly steal .
If flash drives, mice, calculators, keyboards disappear en masse in your office, soap disappears from the lavatory, office paper falls from printers, and hangers hang out, stocks of bulbs are wasted, then this is a sign that an impressive part of the staff cannot afford to buy even such cheap things.
Do not be too lazy to look at the salary statements of your wards. Most likely you will find Achtung there. It is better to reduce staff and increase salaries than to recruit a large staff and to underpay them. At least it’s more honest.
One of the skeletons in your bookcase.
Often this is done: all property is hung on one, two or more MOTs (for example, on a supply manager) with a staff of 600 employees.
This is a serious mistake. With such an accounting system, things begin to disappear, and often not even because of theft, but they simply get lost. In order for there to be no losses, the unfortunate must conduct an audit of the items recorded on him every month, which threatens to turn into his only occupation.
No matter how wild it seems to your accountants, ALL employees should be financially responsible persons, and be responsible for those things that they personally use.
That is, the list of property for each person, ideally, should not exceed 10-15 points that each employee shows during the inventory.
There is another scary skeleton with an ax, waiting in the wings in the bookcases.
This is when 1000 chairs are registered not as 1000 objects under the name “chair” , but as 1 object under the name “1000 chairs” or, worse, 1 object called “a set of office chairs” .
Still real life examples:
- 90 air conditioners as an “air conditioning system”.
- 5 tables, 10 cabinets, a leather chair, an aquarium, two paintings, 8 chairs and a fan, as "a set of furniture for the director’s office."
- monitor, system unit, keyboard, mouse, printer, table, chair, network filter, as a “set of workplace”.
- monitor, system unit, keyboard, mouse, like a "computer".
It occurs all the time. The scourge of almost every major organization. Take a look at the database of fixed assets of your organization and you will be scared how much this is there.
In addition, any attempt to automate the accounting of material resources stumbles upon these “composite kits”: any automated system that works with the database will consider one object as one object, even if it is written in the “comment” field that there are actually 1000 of them .
To avoid such confusion, enter a rule of thumb:
1 item = 1 accounting object.
Yes, I know that if an invoice for the purchase of a “set of office furniture”, not broken down into components, came to the accounting department, then they are forced to register it that way. Let the suppliers require the same atomization. If you want order, it must start with someone.
In addition, similar chaos reigns in the description of the location of objects.
For example, 5 tables, 10 system units and 1 refrigerator are physically located in the same room under the number 101.
According to accounting: 5 tables are listed in the room “101”, 10 system units in the room “cabinet 101” and the refrigerator in the room “to .101 ". From the database point of view, these are three DIFFERENT rooms.
Actually, all of this is dangerous because it is very difficult to find missing items during an inventory, and knowing this, they are easy to steal, and it is even easier to simply lose somewhere in your own building.
If it seems to you that malicious organization writes off completely suitable property, reorganize the business process so that the items being written off go through the control of the commission in which you will personally participate. Will help.
That’s practically all.
I hope that the described examples from experience helped you make the right decision about protecting the office from theft. If other useful thoughts come as they are discussed, I promise to add them.
I want to tell you why in most cases I did not advise them to rush into this (although, of course, this would be a great opportunity to sell them a bunch of expensive iron and go on vacation).
And you, before you seriously think about it, read (or let your leadership read it).
Before continuing, I recall once again that all of the following applies to the office , but in no case a warehouse or a store - the conditions are completely different there.
How and what employees can steal in the office
Kleptomania
A certain employee sees poor (or good) lying material value, begins to “suck under his stomach”, and sooner or later he puts the thing in his briefcase and takes it home, where she takes her place in the junkyard of his combat trophies. From such theft, at least the anti-theft system and vigilant security can save. It is at the very least, for most of the items stolen in this way are very easy to discreetly carry out and impossible to personify. However, the losses from such thefts are cheap.
Malicious write-off
An accounting object that is in good “health” is recognized as defective, a cancellation procedure is carried out, and the thing is taken to its cottage. This can only be done by those who have the power to write off, or is conspiring with such people.
Almost nothing will save from such theft, since the removal of the object and its disappearance will be completely legal, and, moreover, not everyone will suspect this theft.
"Lugging"
The use of errors in maintaining material accounting.
In most organizations, where I have been, material accounting is carried out on the principle of "who is what much". Inaccurate accounting of certain things makes it easy to take them away, and with an annual inventory, no one will notice this, since according to accounting everything will be in order as before. Below I will talk about these errors.
To carry out such theft, you need to know at least once how exactly certain objects are recorded, and if there is a “bug” in their jurisdiction, then figure out how to use it.
Removal of items can be prevented by vigilant security, but anti-theft electronics can be powerless here due to the same accounting errors.
Replacing the “divine gift” with “fried eggs”
Bring your bad and cheap thing, and instead take away the good and expensive.
Most often, computers undergo such “transplantation” - from there they pull out good video cards, memory, hard drives, even processors, and instead they put outdated, smaller, speed.
It is difficult enough to detect theft, which can be detected only by accident, and then, if you keep a good and meticulous record. But if employees receive a good salary, you can not be afraid of this. Those who like to keep workers on a starvation diet will suffer much more.
The attacker in the manual
This is when the boss appropriates part of the property purchased at the expense of the company. Thriving all the time. Nothing will save from this except the anger of the shareholders (greetings to Navalny) and the employees who decided to go to the slaughter for the sake of truth.
From the above review, it becomes clear that controlling thefts in the office is an order of magnitude more difficult than in the store, and it seems to help not only direct anti-theft measures, but indirect ones that, at first glance, are not related to property protection.
“So that it is: the enemy enters, and an electric fist - in his face!”
Modern society seeks to automate everything that can be automated, and, in some cases, this is good. But this case is just that when in response to a question about the need for automation instead of the loud “YES !!!” it would be more correct, after a little hesitation, to answer “wait.”
Obviously, the system of automatic anti-theft protection consists of checkpoints equipped with a certain “electronic instinct” and live security guards, and sensors placed on the property and allowing the “electronic instinct” to react to the passage of these things through the checkpoint.
In addition, in the premises where the property is located, video cameras are located that help to detect or - much more often - retroactively confirm the theft.
This is how the theft is organized in all stores.
What will happen to such a system when it gets to the office?
The “electronic instinct”, whether it be a radio antenna or an acousto-magnetic receiver, will work only when the corresponding transponder enters their field. And, not only will it fall, but it will also be successfully interviewed, despite interference and all kinds of shielding.
This means that before taking out the property, transponders will not be pulled from it and they will not be screened with a "thick piece of iron".
In stores, this happens (in percentage terms) not so often, because cameras, witnesses around, the absence of tools (screwdrivers, wire cutters, shielding boxes, etc.) interfere with this, you cannot go in with bags, and you don’t have time for that there are not so many people.
However, in the office, the potential thief has every opportunity to work on the elimination of anti-theft transponders: there is time, and tools, and the ability to bring in and out pretty impressive bags, and the time when you can be left without witnesses.
And having recorded on the camcorder how the person took the object and went, it is almost impossible to find fault with this fact (except in very exotic cases, for example, the secretary climbed up to unscrew the lights on the ceiling and put them in a bag).
In addition, the removal of many items outside the office does not mean theft.
Sale managers take out laptops and many other things for trips to presentations, engineers take out laptops and tools for customer service, employees are often not forbidden to take work home.
Therefore, the question of automatic protection against theft in the office today can be answered only in two ways:
1) Complete tightening of nuts: total inspection of things of employees at the checkpoint at the entrance and exit, the ban on entry and exit with bags, the ban on the use of personal property at work and working - outside the office. With this method, automation does not make sense, since the main load is borne by live guards.
2) Indirect measures that do not directly prevent theft, but increase the degree of responsibility of employees for the safety of things and reduce their desire for theft. Automation is also useless here, because we approach the problem from a completely different perspective.
The choice between one method or another is made on the basis of an analysis of the incidents of theft and the value of what could potentially be stolen under the current level of protection.
In most cases, there is no reason to resort to tightening the nuts. It, although effective, but it greatly complicates the work and is simply offensive to the staff.
Measures to reduce the conditions for theft.
We will have to talk about indirect measures separately, because there is a lot of things that managers don’t know about, and accountants know, but prefer not to remember.
Raise salaries
It is very commonplace and very difficult to practice.
Here we are not talking about the fact that those who receive 60 thousand should start paying 90.
Just do not keep workers on a starvation diet. If people are only paid enough for food, they will certainly steal .
If flash drives, mice, calculators, keyboards disappear en masse in your office, soap disappears from the lavatory, office paper falls from printers, and hangers hang out, stocks of bulbs are wasted, then this is a sign that an impressive part of the staff cannot afford to buy even such cheap things.
Do not be too lazy to look at the salary statements of your wards. Most likely you will find Achtung there. It is better to reduce staff and increase salaries than to recruit a large staff and to underpay them. At least it’s more honest.
Rebuild the system of financially responsible persons (MOT)
One of the skeletons in your bookcase.
Often this is done: all property is hung on one, two or more MOTs (for example, on a supply manager) with a staff of 600 employees.
This is a serious mistake. With such an accounting system, things begin to disappear, and often not even because of theft, but they simply get lost. In order for there to be no losses, the unfortunate must conduct an audit of the items recorded on him every month, which threatens to turn into his only occupation.
No matter how wild it seems to your accountants, ALL employees should be financially responsible persons, and be responsible for those things that they personally use.
That is, the list of property for each person, ideally, should not exceed 10-15 points that each employee shows during the inventory.
Automate Property Accounting
There is another scary skeleton with an ax, waiting in the wings in the bookcases.
This is when 1000 chairs are registered not as 1000 objects under the name “chair” , but as 1 object under the name “1000 chairs” or, worse, 1 object called “a set of office chairs” .
Still real life examples:
- 90 air conditioners as an “air conditioning system”.
- 5 tables, 10 cabinets, a leather chair, an aquarium, two paintings, 8 chairs and a fan, as "a set of furniture for the director’s office."
- monitor, system unit, keyboard, mouse, printer, table, chair, network filter, as a “set of workplace”.
- monitor, system unit, keyboard, mouse, like a "computer".
It occurs all the time. The scourge of almost every major organization. Take a look at the database of fixed assets of your organization and you will be scared how much this is there.
In addition, any attempt to automate the accounting of material resources stumbles upon these “composite kits”: any automated system that works with the database will consider one object as one object, even if it is written in the “comment” field that there are actually 1000 of them .
To avoid such confusion, enter a rule of thumb:
1 item = 1 accounting object.
Yes, I know that if an invoice for the purchase of a “set of office furniture”, not broken down into components, came to the accounting department, then they are forced to register it that way. Let the suppliers require the same atomization. If you want order, it must start with someone.
In addition, similar chaos reigns in the description of the location of objects.
For example, 5 tables, 10 system units and 1 refrigerator are physically located in the same room under the number 101.
According to accounting: 5 tables are listed in the room “101”, 10 system units in the room “cabinet 101” and the refrigerator in the room “to .101 ". From the database point of view, these are three DIFFERENT rooms.
Actually, all of this is dangerous because it is very difficult to find missing items during an inventory, and knowing this, they are easy to steal, and it is even easier to simply lose somewhere in your own building.
Monitor decisions to write off and destroy property
If it seems to you that malicious organization writes off completely suitable property, reorganize the business process so that the items being written off go through the control of the commission in which you will personally participate. Will help.
That’s practically all.
I hope that the described examples from experience helped you make the right decision about protecting the office from theft. If other useful thoughts come as they are discussed, I promise to add them.