The Bloomfield Group appoints new Managing Director

Posted on April 2, 2012 by Richard Bissett

David Trimmer has been appointed Group Executive Chairman of The Bloomfield Group. He has held the position of Managing Director for 33 years and now hands over the reins to Richard Bissett.

Richard joined the Company 14 years ago as Engineering Manager but for most of that time he has held the position of Technical Director. He has the experience and enthusiasm to drive The Bloomfield Group forward as this new chapter in its history unfolds.

David will now concentrate his efforts on networking and identifying new business opportunities.  When asked about the future David said “The entire Group Board was 100% behind Richard’s appointment and we have complete faith that he will succeed in taking The Bloomfield Group to the next level”.

James Basterfield, The Bloomfield Group’s Commercial Director, added “Richard’s technical expertise and knowledge of the security industry are second to none and I am thrilled that he accepted this position.” James will support Richard in all commercial and financial matters as he endeavours to develop the business further.

Richard thanked David, James and the Board for their support and stated “The business has a solid foundation and a great core of top quality people working for and with us. The next couple of years will be very exciting as we develop the business and push further into IP and integrated systems and other new and related technologies. Taking this Business to the next level is a very exciting challenge for me and with the support of my co-directors I am confident of continued success.”

Richard commenced his role as Group Managing Director on April 2nd 2012

Posted in Gunshot Locating, REMAS, REMAS Deployable Systems, REMAS Global Monitoring, REMAS Perimeter Protection, SDC, Security Design Centre, The Bloomfield Group, The Bloomfield Group | 1 Comment

REMAS and Corps partner as the demand for monitored deployable CCTV increases

Posted on March 23, 2012 by Richard Bissett

NAS-Predator Deployable CCTV from Remas

NAS-Predator Deployable CCTV from Remas

The growth in demand for remotely monitored deployable CCTV has led to Corps Security and The Bloomfield Group member REMAS forming an exclusive strategic partnership. This alliance between two of the leading organisations in their respective fields offers customers an unrivalled combination of next generation technology and remote monitoring via the Corps Monitoring Centre (CMC).

The REMAS Network Accessible Surveillance (NAS) deployable CCTV system is a completely portable, mobile unit that transmits live or recorded images directly to a remote device such as a laptop or smartphone via GPRS, 3G, broadband or wireless LAN. Truly deployable, it can simply be screwed to a wall, plugged into a mains electricity supply and activated – a process that takes around 90 seconds to complete. As many as eight battery operated detectors can then be located up to 500m from the NAS.

‘This solution was created out of pure frustration with other so-called deployable systems on the market,’ explained Richard Bissett, director of REMAS. ‘As an installer we found that other manufacturers’ equipment simply didn’t function anywhere near as well as it was sold. Therefore, we addressed this by creating a comprehensive, easy to install and technically advanced system of our own that uses a 28:1 day/night auto focus PTZ dome camera and has built in wireless radio detection and audio, which allows operatives at the CMC to talk directly to intruders.’

Corps Security has integrated the REMAS NAS software into its state-of-the art Corps Monitoring Centre (CMC), which provides third party alarm receiving and CCTV monitoring services to a wide range of customers across many market sectors.

The NAS system can be located anywhere and is ideally suited to combating crime or providing important management information in virtually any location. Successful deployments have already taken place in a wide variety of locations including vacant buildings, construction sites, remote broadcasting sites, utilities, universities, at sporting events and at concerts. It has also been used by councils to monitor locations used for illegal fly-tipping, providing evidence for a number of prosecutions.

Highly robust and vandal resistant, it is made of Kevlar E-Glass reinforced composite material – the same product that many Formula 1 cars are made from. It also comes with a GPS tracker as standard, meaning that it can be located via software such as Google Earth and can be tracked in the event of theft. The latest version even incorporates infrared, allowing the unit to be used in total darkness with an effective range of over 90m.

Eric Roberts, Corps Security’s CMC business development director, commented, ‘We only work with best in class technology and it is my firm belief that the REMAS NAS system sets the benchmark for deployable CCTV. This latest strategic partnership will further enhance the CMC’s reputation and allows us to offer another unique service to our growing customer base.’

REMAS has produced a video to demonstrate the benefits of its Network Accessible Surveillance (NAS) deployable CCTV system, which can be viewed at

http://www.remas.co.uk/rds-home

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Gunshot Locating Press Release

Posted on February 8, 2012 by Richard Bissett

GunShotLocating LLP is proud to have worked with West Midlands Police and the Birmingham Community Safety Partnership on Operation Safe and Sound, the gunshot detection system deployed in Birmingham since December 2010. We have been involved as a member of the Project Board since its inception and pleased to see community members and Police Authority representation on the same Board.

To ensure the effectiveness of the system after the initial deployment and the WMP testing programme, we agreed on a pause period in mid-2011 to do quality testing. During that time, GunShotLocating Ltd and SST introduced a number of significant improvements at no cost to the police. These included 24/7 monitoring and review of all gunshot alerts from the system and significant upgrades in the technology hardware and software.

The quality testing of the new system on 1st August 2011 met all of the system requirements. It also provided for the first time confirmation that ShotSpotter can detect ‘non-standard’ weapons, often the weapon of choice of the UK criminal gangs.
Since ShotSpotter was deployed in Birmingham, gun crime has been reduced by 17%, compared with London showing a 4% increase in gun crimes and no ShotSpotter system.
Of real significance is the community confidence the ShotSpotter solution provides.

Community engagement with the police is increased with the ShotSpotter deployment as the communities see the police responding to gunfire incidents more frequently and putting an emphasis on reducing gun crime and violence in their areas. WMP provides a range of community feedback strongly indicating feelings of safety and reduction in gun crime are linked to Operation Safe and Sound.

GunShotLocating LLP will continue to work with WMP and all the other parties in evaluating the ShotSpotter solution deployed in Birmingham during 2012.

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Don’t just count shoppers, analyse what they are doing

Posted on November 23, 2011 by Richard Bissett

In line with the Bloomfield Group’s ethos of keeping up with leading technology, a famous, but shall remain nameless for obvious reasons, High Street Chain has asked Group Member Security Design Centre Ltd (SDC) to lead them into a whole new level of customer analysis. SDC in partnership with a major security industry software house has developed a system that takes analytics to a whole new level. Utilising existing analogue or IP cameras, this plug on hardware box can replace the existing DVR or NVR, can replace the wired or wireless router and has the added advantage of some incredibly flexible and leading edge analytics.

Picture the scene, a customer walks into the shop and waits patiently at the counter waiting to be served. The system will analyse this and report to HQ just how long it takes for their staff to approach the customer. If the customer walks out with out being spoken to this will also be reported. How about the areas of the shop where most people congregate, if HQ knew this they would know precisely which campaigns were working and where to put new advertising. Of course there are by-products of this information. For instance, security will be interested if someone is running in their shops as this would be deemed as unusual behaviour.

Outright purchase is always an option but for this system SDC are offering a fully managed system contract that saves the customer the capital outlay allowing him to effectively “rent” the system and have bespoke reports created just for him and delivered electronically in the time frame of his choosing.

Security is normally a grudge purchase as it doesn’t add profit, it just protects it. But what if security could be provided by the marketing departments budget?

For further information please feel free to email or phone us.

 

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Thermal Imaging does so much more than just security

Posted on November 14, 2011 by Richard Bissett

The Bloomfield Group once again marches forward with leading edge tech by marrying deployable CCTV with Thermal Imaging, but with a difference. The 360 degree view primarily monitors thermal preset positions in the field of view of the camera and stores temperatures. When one of these temperatures exceeds pre-determined norms a technical alarm is sent to the customer’s help desk to let them know of an imminent failure of say, a pump or motor. (This is of particular interest to facility companies). But thats not all, whilst doing this “tour”, should an intruder be detected by one of the battery operated wireless detectors, the NAS deployable system will turn and look at him whilst simultaneously sending a live video stream to the central monitoring station who can audibly challenge him. Obviously being thermal, no external lighting is required. Now thats what I call deployable!

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Service above and beyond…….

Posted on August 26, 2011 by Richard Bissett

During the recent riots The Bloomfield Group member, REMAS, truly went above and beyond the call of duty by permanently monitoring certain key sites that were in the troubled areas. Additional staff were called in to man the receiving stations and worked all night to ensure nothing untoward was happening on customer sites in the vicinity of the riots.

CCTV is a great tool, like it or love it, having recorded time stamped footage of an incident is the ultimate evidence used in court as it is indisputable. BUT, if the building housing the CCTV recorder is damaged, or in the case of many buildings affected by the riots, totally destroyed by fire, then the evidence gets destroyed as well.

This is where remotely monitored CCTV come into its own. Normally remote CCTV sits there minding its own business until an intruder is detected, at which point the footage is transmitted to a manned monitoring centre for escalation to the Police or key-holders. But, a byproduct of this system is the ability to connect to the site and monitor it even if no intruders are present. Normally this would be far too expensive to consider but in unusual circumstances, like a riot for instance, the customer or monitoring centre can connect to site and view it live.

So, next time you are facing troubles and your current supplier isn’t stepping up to the plate, remember this blog and the service that The Bloomfield Group offers its loyal customers. Oh, I forgot to mention, we did all this completely free of charge!

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England Riots and CCTV

Posted on August 12, 2011 by Richard Bissett

Lets not get into the why the riots happened, let us instead get into what we can do about it. We have all seen the endless reams of footage shown in the world media giving us a graphic insight into the minds of so-called ordinary people who, given the opportunity, are eager to indulge in wanton vandalism, robbery, arson, burglary, assault, public order offences and ultimately, murder. Most of them, due to the nature of rioting and the confusion it causes, simply walk away from it and never face justice for their crimes. There are of course some “unlucky” rioters who are close enough to a camera to be recognised but most are a simply a blur of a dozen or so pixels in the background of the picture.

What can we do about it then? I hear you cry.

Welcome to High Definition or Megapixel CCTV! We have all read about it, we have all probably played with it and tested it but how many of us have actually installed it? The Bloomfield Group has, and guess what, Mr Pixel head rioter can now be identified and will therefore be facing justice at a night court hearing near you soon.

When I say “justice”, 16 weeks jail, (which is automatically halved to 8 ) is hardly a fitting punishment for setting fire to premises, looting shops and hurling petrol bombs at the Police but I guess at least they become “known” which means its easier to capture them on the next crime.

We have all been used to our digital camera at home which allows us to “zoom” into the holiday snaps and read the “Lifeguard” sign on the side of the boat in the distance behind the cheesy grin of our loved ones, but until recently this was not available in the CCTV market. The main reason was processing power. Your holiday camera only has to deal with one 12 megapixel image every few seconds but CCTV requires multiple images of this size per second. Aracont’s megapixel range now has the capability and allows the security personnel or Police to pick out an individual face in a football crowd from the other side of the stadium. So, transpose that technology to a Police van, a lamp post mounted camera or The Bloomfield Group’s award nominated NAS deployable camera system and you have your evidence. Mr Pixel head rioter can no longer hide because he will be captured on high definition video, stored digitally so it will never degrade and the Police can then arrest him at their leisure.

All we need now is a punishment system that fits the crime…. don’t get me started!

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The Bloomfield Group designed NAS awarded June Product of the Month

Posted on July 8, 2011 by Richard Bissett

The Bloomfield Group member company, REMAS Deployable Systems, received yet another accolade from the Industry when their NAS Deployable system was voted Product of the Month for June in Professional Security Magazine.

The NAS system requires only mains electricity to work and can be literally installed in minutes. No further cabling is required as the comms and detection are wireless and the audio is already built in. The Kevlar reinforced NAS is highly vandal resistant as none of its antenna are external and it comes with a GPS tracker as standard.

The NAS can be received by virtually all the monitoring centres in the UK but obviously REMAS Deployable Systems recommends REMAS Global Monitoring as it is probably the best specified BS5979, BS8418 and A.C.E. accredited visual monitoring centre in the UK.

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Bloomfield nominated for IFSEC CCTV System of the Year Finalist

Posted on June 23, 2011 by Richard Bissett

The Bloomfield Group member company, REMAS Deployable Systems, received the highest possible accolade from the Industry when the product they designed made it to the  finals at IFSEC 2011 for the CCTV System of the Year with their innovative truly deployable NAS (Network Accessible Surveillance).

The NAS system requires only mains electricity to work and can be literally installed in minutes. No further cabling is required as the comms and detection are wireless and the audio is already built in. The Kevlar reinforced NAS is highly vandal resistant as none of its antenna are external and it comes with a GPS tracker as standard.

The NAS can be received by virtually all the monitoring centres in the UK but obviously REMAS Deployable Systems recommends REMAS Global Monitoring as it is probably the best specified BS5979, BS8418 and A.C.E. accredited visual monitoring centre in the UK.

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Bloomfield Group moves further into the IP age

Posted on December 20, 2010 by Richard Bissett

IP has been the buzz word for the industry for several years and yet most people you speak to still propose and install analogue CCTV…why?

Well, in short, IP didn’t actually offer you anything that analogue couldn’t but cost substantially more, so whilst people were prepared to entertain the idea of IP CCTV, they were not prepared to entertain the cost….until now.

So it appears that finally the manufacturers have understood the price premium they have been asking for has been the reason why people have not been getting on board with the technology, unless funds are unlimited for government or military etc, especially when you consider the world financial situation.

So, with all this in mind, Bloomfield Group member REMAS are now installing full HD cameras from IP leaders Aracont. These 8mb cameras are world class and allow the Holy Grail that is retrospective zoom resulting in fewer cameras providing more evidence. Imagine starting with a wide angle view showing large areas but not much detail. Then imagine “zooming” into the picture to pick out the detail. The best of both worlds.

Combine these cameras with a 4Tb network video recorder (NVR) and you are faced with amazing HD clarity and an archive of either real time footage for a couple of weeks or a more realistic 6 images per second per camera for 28 days.

But, what if you already have an analogue “coaxial” cable backbone? Well simply use the Veracity High Wire IP over coax converters and enjoy a 100mbps network over your existing cabling. HD clarity over original coax, a future proof system at a fraction of the cost

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