Electronic Access Control

Thomas L. Norman

• Verlag: Butterworth-Heinemann
• Jahr: 2011
• ISBN:
  9780123820297
• Thema: Social Sciences
• Thema: Criminology

Electronic Access Control introduces the fundamentals of electronic access control through clear, well-illustrated explanations. Access Control Systems are difficult to learn and even harder to master due to the different ways in which manufacturers approach the subject and the myriad complications associated with doors, door frames, hardware, and electrified locks.

This book consolidates this information, covering a comprehensive yet easy-to-read list of subjects that every Access Control System Designer, Installer, Maintenance Tech or Project Manager needs to know in order to develop quality and profitable Alarm/Access Control System installations. Within these pages, Thomas L. Norman – a master at electronic security and risk management consulting and author of the industry reference manual for the design of Integrated Security Systems – describes the full range of EAC devices (credentials, readers, locks, sensors, wiring, and computers), showing how they work, and how they are installed.

• A comprehensive introduction to all aspects of electronic access control
• Provides information in short bursts with ample illustrations
• Each chapter begins with outline of chapter contents and ends with a quiz
• May be used for self-study, or as a professional reference guide

1. Introduction and Overview

Chapter objectives

1. Understand Who Should Read This Book and Why

2. Understand What You Can Expect to Learn

3. Understand How Information is Presented in the Book

4. Understand How This Book Will Improve Your Career

CHAPTER OVERVIEW

This book is about physical Access Control Systems. It does not cover Information Technology Access Control, which is another subject altogether.

Access Control Systems are electronic systems that allow authorized personnel to enter controlled, restricted, or secure spaces by presenting an access credential to a credential reader. Access control systems can be basic or highly complicated ranging across state and national borders and incorporating security monitoring elements and interfaces to other security systems and other building systems.

Security technicians, designers, and program managers who fully understand access control systems are at a distinct advantage over their brethren who have only a passing knowledge. This book will give you that edge.

This book covers virtually every aspect of electronic Alarm/Access Control Systems and also includes insight into the problems you will face as you learn to install, maintain, or design them, including valuable information on how to overcome those challenges.

This book is designed to help you launch your career with Alarm/Access Control Systems well ahead of your contemporaries by equipping you with the knowledge that takes most people decades to assemble.

This book is about physical Access Control Systems. It does not cover Information Technology Access Control, which is a totally different subject.

Access Control Systems are electronic systems that allow authorized personnel to enter controlled, restricted, or secure spaces by presenting an access credential to a credential reader. Access control systems can be basic or highly complicated ranging across state and national borders and incorporating security monitoring elements and interfaces to other security systems and other building systems.

Security technicians, designers, and program managers who fully understand access control systems are at a distinct advantage over their brethren who have only a passing knowledge. This book will give you that edge.

This book also covers virtually every aspect of electronic Alarm/Access Control Systems and includes insight into the problems you will face as you learn to install, maintain, or design them, including valuable information on how to overcome those challenges.

Keywords: Access Control Systems, Alarm/Access Control Systems, Design, Designers, Install, Maintain, Physical Access Control, Program Managers, Technicians

Author Information:

Thomas L. Norman, CPP, PSP, CSC, Executive Vice President, Protection Partners International

Rules to Live By

While many Security System Designers today come out of Engineering Schools, I became a Designer after first being a Technician. I also spent a number of years learning the intricacies of Risk Management and Security Program Management. This background has allowed me to create three important rules that I follow when designing systems:

Rule #1: Design security systems based upon an understanding of the facility's risks and make sure the system can mitigate as many as possible.

Rule #2: Design the security system as a “Force Multiplier” to repeatedly expand the capabilities of the Security Force.

Rule #3: Always design security systems as if the guy who will maintain it is a violent psychopath who knows where you live.

Rule #3 acknowledges that Technicians have a very difficult job. If you are one, you already know this. If you are an aspiring designer, please remember all three of these rules. They will serve you well. If you design systems that embrace risk, that expand the capabilities of the security force, and that are easy to operate and easy to maintain then you will be much loved by your clients, installing contractors, and their maintenance technicians.

If you are a security system technician, it pays to learn more about risk and how to mitigate it. There is more to security than security systems. In fact, I am well known for saying: “Electronics is the high priest of false security.” It is understandable but unfortunate that very few security system technicians understand how organizations operate, why organizations assemble assets, what kinds of threat actors put those assets at constant risk, what threat scenarios the security program should be designed to mitigate, how to identify a very wide range of vulnerabilities, how to calculate threat/vulnerability probabilities, or indeed much about risk and risk management. There is much more to security than installing cameras, alarms, and card readers.

My background as an installation and maintenance technician has given me a deep appreciation of the difficulties in installing and maintaining security systems. Although today I design highly integrated security systems, security risk management programs, and anti-terrorism technologies for extremely high-threat environments, I still draw daily on that early experience as a technician. Engineers can do plenty to make the installation and maintenance process much easier and to make designs resonate to the risk they manage.

Who Should Read This Book?

Alarm and Access Control Systems can be complicated. Today they do much more than most Engineers and Technicians think. You will finish this book with a very high level of knowledge about Alarm and Access Control Systems. You will learn about security technologies that very few technicians, designers, and security program managers have ever heard of or know anything about. After reading this book, you will rise to expert knowledge level.

This book should be read by

• Security System Technicians

• Security System Engineers and Designers

• Risk Managers

• Security Program Directors and Managers

• Guard Company Managers and Supervisors

• Security Consultants

• Facility Managers

• Security Installation Project Managers

• Anyone new to Alarm and Access Control Systems

Each of these professionals will learn important things from this book that are not available from other common sources and that will further their careers.

How Is Material Presented in This Book?

This book is designed to teach concepts that may be unfamiliar to many if not most readers. It is a foundational book upon which your career may be built, especially if you are going into a technical career in the security industry. Whether you will be a technician, installer, or designer, this book includes information that is essential to your success.

As many of these concepts are highly detailed and have common threads that run through many variations of the technology, the information presented herein is presented in a similar way. You will see a design concept presented first in its simplest form. In another chapter you will see it presented again in a slightly different form, relating this time to something similar, but somehow different than the first form. You may see the design concept presented a third time in still another environment. Finally, you will see the design concept integrated later in the book into a much more complex assembly, often where it is used to integrate multiple systems or multiple concepts together into a higher, more complex concept.

This layering approach to concepts ensures that you will not be left in the dark at any time. As each layer is presented, one over the other, you will build brick by brick a structure of knowledge that is secure on a foundation of simple concepts learned early in the book.

This books teaches similar to the way a user may use a web forum to enhance his/her knowledge on a subject by hearing a concept described by different people talking about the same idea from many different points of view and each time talking about different applications of the concept. Each time a concept is presented, it is shown in a slightly different way, enlightening your understanding of the idea each time, but from a different angle.

What Will You Learn, and How Will It Help Your Career?

Security Technicians will develop a profoundly deep understanding of how Alarm/Access Control Systems work that will demystify previous complexities and make them stone-...