Preventing Theft in Warehouse Locations with an Alarm System
Why Theft Happens
If you own a warehouse or are in the type of business that utilizes warehouses, chances are you have experienced some form of theft.
It happens in most businesses, but warehouses are a target for many reasons. Location and internal factors make warehouses ideal locations for the criminal activity of theft from the small scale employee office supply swipe to complex collaborative thievery of entire shipments, an unprotected warehouse is a crime scene waiting to happen.
Factors that contribute to the vulnerability of warehouses are that they are usually located in a remote area from a town or city due to the lower cost of real estate and the need for an expansive amount of space. Add to that the fact that low cost real estate is usually in a less desirable area of a city or town and you have the recipe for an ideal target for a criminal.
Do you think your warehouse is vulnerable? Your answer should be a resounding yes. The question is what steps can you take to prevent theft in your warehouse? Fortunately there are many ways and means to prevent theft in your warehouse and having a strategy that is conducive to theft prevention will make a big difference in your bottom line and the safety and security of your business and its employees.
Ideally, having the warehouse layout designed to deter inventory theft, shrinkage and burglary is the ideal. Landscaping your grounds by not erecting fences or trees near doors and windows to make those areas less vulnerable is ideal. Retrofitting the design of a warehouse can be costly in both redesign and down time from lost business.
The best solution is to outfit the warehouse with current technology in the form of surveillance cameras and an alarm system. Home Security Concepts, an authorized ADT dealer is the company that can help prevent theft in your warehouse and deter theft from outside assailants from targeting it.
Waiting will not make the problem go away and criminals are opportunists: they are always looking for a vulnerable target.
An understanding of the different types of theft and the areas in which theft is an issue will help to create a preventative strategy. The following will help you to understand the action to take to secure your warehouse.
Inside: Employee Theft
When it’s an employee that is stealing, it’s doubly troublesome as not only is the employee supposed to be a trusted member of the business, but they are hurting themselves as their theft impacts the profitability of the company and jeopardizes profits, benefits and the ability of the business to grow. In a 2007 report, Wal-Mart stated that employee theft reached epidemic proportions as it outpaced shoplifting loss by an unbelievable 50%.
By keeping tight reigns on inventory, you can identify what it is that employees are stealing and where. Installing surveillance cameras in strategically identified areas will help. When employees know that they are under surveillance, this fact alone will deter many would-be thieves.
The actual video from the surveillance cameras will allow management to identify problem areas and employees and take the necessary actions to rectify the situation. Home Security Concepts, authorized ADT dealer, has the equipment, systems and packages to fit the needs of your warehouse to curtail activities that harm your business.
Collaboration: The Collusion of Theft
A huge threat to warehouses is the collusion of dishonest people: an inside warehouse employee and an outside person. The warehouse is made vulnerable in many ways, from delivery to storage to shipping to so-called ‘trash drop’, to so many innumerable ways to steal from a warehouse.
Storage areas armed with alarms are ideal deterrents to collaborative theft practices by ensuring only people with authorized access can gain entrance to restricted areas. A system like this can ensure that high cost, valuable warehouse commodities are kept safe from would-be criminals. The theft of valuable inventory can not only ruin the reputation of a warehouse facility, but ruin the total business as well.
Having systems with a variety of checks and balances helps, but further, having a company like Home Security Concepts, authorized ADT dealer, analyze your vulnerable areas and install surveillance systems and alarms will most certainly curb these unsavory practices and could possibly save your warehouse facility and business from financial devastation.
Outside: Theft by Break In
How many windows and doors does your warehouse have? What other areas of entree are there: loading dock, skylight? Criminals are looking for weakness, for opportunities to exploit: do not make it easy for them. Do no become a statistic.
Make no mistake, a huge warehouse building, whose location is usually remote, is a primary target for criminals, a sitting duck, so to speak.
Criminals, as we know, are opportunists. If you think like they do, imagine this scenario: a remote area from town, a large warehouse, parking lot, employees come and go like clockwork for their shifts and then the whistle blows and it’s closing time. Lights out and the building is sitting there empty, alone vulnerable. A tantalizing target for criminals, vandals and thieves.
Arming your building with an alarm system that keeps out dangerous criminals is the only way to protect your warehouse. Home Security Concepts’ security professionals will come to your warehouse and conduct a thorough analysis of your building noting vulnerable areas like windows, doors, shipping and receiving dock, skylights, and more.
Our security professionals will work with you to configure the optimum alarm system to protect your warehouse and keep your business safe.
Alarming Situation
Now that you understand the different types of warehouse theft and how much of a target warehouses are, you must act at once to prevent your warehouse from its vulnerability.
As soon as you contact Home Security Concepts, an authorized ADT dealer, you will speak with a security professional who will conduct a thorough consultation and will come out, usually the same day to install the most optimum alarm system and burglary protection available. With six state-of-the-art monitoring centers, we are constantly watching your warehouse, and are able to respond fast, when time is of the essence and seconds count. Our high quality alarm equipment has been designed for internal and external detection of intrusion, rain, shine or natural disaster: we will not tolerate any breach of your warehouse security.
We are on watch 24/7, 365 days a year so you can relax knowing your warehouse is safe. You can contact us today at (954) 713-9411 for Broward County and (305) 424-9219 for Miami-Dade County.
