ELECTRONIC SECURITY FOR THE COFFEE INDUSTRY.

Ken.C.Calvert.P.R.S. Processing Dept.1998.

An escalating factor of expense for the coffee industry in Papua New Guinea, is the price of security. At the moment it seems to be largely a matter of barbed wire, razor wire, dogs and an increasing army of men. Of all these high capital investment components, the least reliable is the men. How many of our paid security staff are in league with the perpetrators of the ever increasing numbers of breakins? How many of them stay awake and alert all night?

However, despite their shortcomings, it is only the men, and their dogs, who comprise the active part of the system. Any passive system, like a security fence, is only as good as the regular patroling it receives to check for holes etc.

In the face of the very complex and very active electronic alarm systems that are widely available in other sectors of the community, it is surprising that the coffee industry has not made more use of them. The electronic genies operate 24hours a day 7 days a week, slumber not nor sleep, and have no wantoks or other factors which might compromise their loyalty to their masters.

Perhaps our present security industry is not attuned to electronics. Perhaps they see it as a threat to their status quo and lots of easy jobs. However, there is already a network of TV. computer and electronics repair shops in the country, with no vested interests in maintaining the status quo, who would be delighted to extend their business into the supply of, maintainance and repair of these systems.

The use of electronics would not of course remove the need to employ a security force, it wouldonly allow a smaller one to be deployed more effectively. If a Plantation or Factory Manager can operate a computer, particularly from the early MSDOS environment, then he should not be aprehensive about maintaining an electronic security cover over his area of responsibility.

An electronic security system has several parts, each part of which, by itself, is quite simple in form.

1/. A system of remote sensors, triggers or trip wires.

2/. A telephone type network, to link these sensors together,

and conveys the signal to a central point.

3/. A central monitoring switchboard, which will then either, alert an attendant on duty, summon someone on the phone to come and check the system, like say a security company, or else, activate an alarm system.

4/. An alarm or retaliation system, which may either switch on sirens and lights or some such scaring tactic, or else allow the duty officer to sweep the area with night glasses and quietlycall up reinforcements before he activates the alarm system.

5/. A follow up active security force of dogs or suitably armed personnel, who may be positioned quite some distance away, and who can possibily cover several areas at once.

It should be said right from the start, that up to 95% of the activations on any kind of reasonably sensitive electronic system are false. Electronics alone are not a complete substitute. At least one person needs to be on duty somewhere, to make an on the spot assessment of whether the little red light blinking on his control panel is true or false. However, that same electronics system will alsokeep a constant check on that same person on duty, and prevent him from deliberately disabling the system in any way or being inattentive. If its a big system, then the Security Supervisor, has to go round at intervals to run his checker down the bar code on the side of the walkie talkie or of the identity card of each individual watchman. However, from the readout of this operation, he may not realise that he too is also being monitored for his movements and activity.

The major advantage, is that one person somewhere, can be alerted, without letting the intruders know that they have been spotted. That person can then follow their movements very easily, and has several minutes to radio for the attack force to position and prepare themselves for when the lights go on and the ruckus starts. This kind of action has the kind of Zulu.1 Zulu.1 thing about it,which can make all the difference in the world to the morale of ones security staff, and allow much smaller teams to operate very effectively.

Of the various component types mentioned above, all are available in the market place, and at a reasonable cost. The electronics to cover say the perimeter fence of a 2 Ha drying field would costaround K3,500, a fraction of the cost for razor wire. However, the difficult part, that requires consultative expertise, is putting a system together, and in particular, choosing the right sensors. Itis often the high cost of this consultative work which is so off putting to potential investors. However, there is enough similarity within the coffee industry to perhaps co-operatively finance one consultancy for the industry as a whole. From then on, its just a case of ordering the required components, and calling on ones local electronics repair man.

What kind of sensor systems can be used to guard fields of drying coffee? Each industry or individual has to choose these sensors for each particular situation. However, some assistance can be given by advising what kinds of systems are actually available on the market and how they can be deployed.

A further point to emphasize is that more than one system is often desirable. The potential intruder may have his attention so taken up with the notices advertising that the prominent wiring system just inside the fence carries 60,000 volts, that he is oblivious to the real system, which could be an invisible photoelectric or infrared beam, trained along the outside of the fence. The fence itself could be sensitive to its capacitative loading and trigger when any body touches it. Or, it could be like Buckingham Palace or the entire Israeli Palistine border, with a simple pair of wires, buried underground, which detects anybody within five metres of the fence.

Every length of plastic drying sail could have a thin wire threaded down its length, with the wire plugged into the local plugbox, when the sails are closed down for the night. Then, once the system is activated, any movement of even one sail would alert the security switchboard operator.

We are all familiar with the active IR or infra-red devices that operate our remote TV controls, or the passive ones that trigger the proximity lights over our back doors, but how about an invisable beam that slowly sweeps back and forth accross a wider area under protection, and triggers when it detects any movement at a range of even 100-200 metres. The progression of technology, and computer controlled systems is now almost on a month to month basis. These systems will false trigger many times, they cannot tell the difference between a dog or a flying fox,but they will also detect all intruders in plenty of time for sure capture and 100% invunerability. Furthermore, they are fail safe. Any attempt to disable them or cut the power off from outside the area etc., simply creates a full alert.

As always, its a case of keeping ahead of the opposition. Rascals will be trying their best to evade whatever system the owners have installed, and maintaining control is an ongoing saga. However, the sophistication of the electronic wizardry of all kinds from all around the world now being manufactured under licence in Asia is far ahead of our kinds of problems. And, like most Asian companies manufacturing under licence, so much of it is sold out the back door, on the cheap, that Air Nuigini flights from Hongkong and Singapore should have plenty of air cargo for a while yet. The C.R.I. Processing Dept, will be happy to respond to any queries.

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