Building a ROC for 24/7 security
Find out how Meijer strengthened asset protection and fraud mitigation across all supercenters and major distribution centers.
The company
Founded in 1934, Meijer is a family-owned, American supercenter chain primarily operating in the Midwestern United States. The company is credited for opening the first-ever supercenter in 1962. Today, they operate nearly 300 retail locations across Michigan, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Wisconsin, and Ohio. They offer customers convenience, value, and fresh, high-quality products alongside a close-knit, friendly team that fosters a local hometown grocer experience.
The challenge
When past security system investments began aging, the supercenter retailer initiated a big upgrade. The team wanted to phase out older equipment and move to a robust and highly scalable IP security platform. They also wanted to connect video with other business systems to enhance fraud mitigation and operational intelligence. With plans to build a remote operations center (ROC), Meijer needed a security platform with centralized management capabilities.
The solution
Centralized retail security operations
With the Federation feature, operators at the ROC have a centralized view of video and data across all sites. They can quickly address incoming alarms and handle investigations around the clock.
Smoother fraud investigations
Video at each register is linked to POS transactions in real time. Operators can monitor live transactions alongside receipt overlays or review historical transaction data to address fraud concerns.
Innovative asset protection
Meijer has linked Genetec Mission Control™ to shopping cart wheel lock technology. If someone attempts to push a shopping cart of unpaid merchandise out the door, Security Center alerts staff.
Better evidence management
“Since we can easily export evidence from Security Center into Clearance and build cases faster, we’re saving time and labor when working on larger cases,” said Themm.
“We saw value in being able to connect all our sites within Security Center and partition user access for different use cases. We quickly realized how that would multiply the impact of our ROC.”
Ryan Themm, Corporate Investigations Manager at Meijer
Results
Today, Meijer is using the Omnicast™ video management system to manage over 28,000 cameras across all supercenters, four major distribution centers, specialty healthcare sites, and corporate offices. They’ve also unified point of sale (POS), intrusion, video analytics, electronic article surveillance (EAS), and other systems within Security Center. More recently, they’ve started expanding the Synergis™ access control system across various sites and locations.
Within Security Center, the team has also deployed various video analytics that help qualify events and ORC-related crimes. “Loitering analytics give us a big return on investment by identifying the potential for criminal activity. We’ve also started using analytics to help our operations partners enhance the customer experience. For example, we’re able to generate alarms and retrieve data on how long our customers are waiting in line. It’s a valuable tool that can lead to operational improvements,” said Themm.