The Company
Cushman & Wakefield are experts in the provision of innovative commercial property services. They deal with all aspects of property management, from advertising and lease negotiations through to facilities management and all administrative and financial aspects of managing commercial property.
With more than 400 offices and over 50,000 employees globally, Cushman & Wakefield have developed a wide network of global property experts to ensure maximum visibility of the local commercial property markets. It is this network which has reinforced their status as industry leaders.
Cushman & Wakefield operate in over 70 offices across the Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) region, access control has played a key role in effectively managing security, protecting assets and supporting the daily throughput of people within their operations.
Requirement
Cushman & Wakefield use access control to manage authorised entry into their own offices as well as controlling access around their IT server rooms. Operating within shared office facilities, the system not only needed to integrate access rights to their own office but also through main reception areas which operated on a separate access control system.
Cushman & Wakefield required a new future-proof, modern system that would work with the latest operating systems and turned to access control specialists TouchStar ATC to manage the upgrade process, from design and planning, through to installation and ongoing support.
Cara Brown, Infrastructure Engineer at Cushman & Wakefield worked alongside TouchStar to manage the upgrade project. “We were operating a legacy system on desktop pc’s that we realised we had to upgrade. We were looking to make a transition from our existing system to one that we could host on our own servers, so essentially virtualising our access control and upgrading our existing interface”.
Solution
The new system was successfully installed across two sites in Leeds and Birmingham. As part of the upgrade, TouchStar installed new proximity readers. TouchStar were also able to integrate Cushman & Wakefield’s existing cards onto the upgraded system, meaning one proximity card provided turnstile access to both the main building and card access to Cushman & Wakefield’s own offices. The utilisation of existing cards also eliminated the administrative difficulties of distributing new access cards to staff, allowing for a more efficient upgrade process.
TouchStar’s own Microtrak Evolution Software, a modular based access control system provided the upgraded interface, with its clear, simple to use screens. The system is designed around the IP addressable Door Controller, which plugs directly to a client’s existing TCP/IP network. The Evolution software communicates with the controller via a LAN or WAN.
Since the installation, Cushman & Wakefield are now looking to upgrade further sites from the old legacy system onto the new TouchStar solution. Cara continues, “the overall system upgrade has made a significant difference. User set up is quick and easy, particularly for reception who issue visitor cards on our behalf. The user friendliness of the system has increased efficiency and reduced the resource and overall costs required to manage the system. TouchStar worked closely with us throughout the whole upgrade process, helping us overcome the challenges of exporting the data into the new system. The result was a smooth implementation and rollout of the new solution.