How AiMS- The New VMS Helps Avoid Cargo Theft for Warehouse Operations
Besides the full truckloads thefts and facility thefts, Warehouse locations remained the most commonplace for cargo theft all over the world, especially during the holiday seasons.
Nearly two months ago, a man has been arrested after £250,000 in cash and a huge stash of high-value mobile phone products were found following a theft at an Amazon distribution center; the police received a report of a large amount of stock being stolen earlier from the warehouse in Over Hulton, Greater Manchester, UK.
Most businesses with warehouse components suffer a great deal of loss due to inventory shrinkage caused by theft within the warehouse, by their own internal employees. This goes with the territory in all regions, and reducing the cost of these losses is entirely possible with the right tools and processes.
There is no single, simple solution to prevent warehouse theft. It takes a combination of strong processes, powerful video surveillance systems, warehouse management software, and excellent hiring criteria to reduce theft in the warehouse business.
The best way to identify theft in the warehouse is to conduct regular stock takes; without regular stock takes the owner or managers may not even notice that inventory levels are shrinking suspiciously until months down the line- by which time the warehouse business be hemorrhaging cash.
The more accurate the inventory data, the faster the owner will pick up on theft. Once the warehouse owner or manager has sensed any suspicious status, make good use of the smart video surveillance system with cutting-edge technology for proactive operational management.
Look out for the following red flags that could indicate warehouse theft:
▸ The stock levels don’t match the sales records.
▸ Sales seem to dip on days when particular staff are on duty.
▸ Staff rumors suggest theft is taking place.
▸ Certain team members avoid taking their annual leave.
▸ Important documentation (such as invoices) is missing or appears as duplicates rather than originals.
▸ Stock is constantly found near exits or loading bays.
While it is very difficult to prove that someone is guilty of warehouse theft without catching the person red-handed, it is much easier to put security measures in place which help avoid theft altogether.
Here is an example of how to maximize managerial visibility in the warehouse with AiMS, a new video surveillance system powered by Artificial Intelligence.
SkyREC AiMS has evolved from security video management to an advanced role to support greater protection. Object Focus, Object Search, Appearance Focus, and Behavior Focus of AiMS are the key functions of being an AI-powered search engine, enabling the police or security officers to rapidly detect and track target objects or specific incidents, reducing the time on searching for security video footage from hours to just minutes, or seconds short.
Object Focus
Object Focus performs logical reasoning of the system to provide real-time detection, analyzing, and tracking meaningful objects. As AiMS learns, thinks, and optimizes itself day by day, the accuracy of video analytics continues strengthening on the face, head, human, and vehicle recognition, which greatly benefits the live monitoring and on-demand modes.
Since it is crucial to set limit access to stock in the warehouse, the owner or managers should create barriers that help to prevent theft by using the physical layout of the warehouse.
For example, separate the receiving and shipping docks where possible, to prevent newly received stock from exiting on an outbound truck before it even enters the warehouse. Keep the pick faces and inventory storage locations as far away from the shipping and receiving areas as possible. The only stock that should be near these areas is incoming and outgoing orders.
In that case, security officers or managers in the office just need to put the conditions of their preferred highlight target to AiMS, and it will automatically recognize the object which is required attention from hundreds of cameras. After setting, if the truck or truck driver appears in the restricted area or at an unusual time, Object Focus pops out the notifications by highlighting the target objects without having the security officers stare non-stop at the cameras and losing focus from dozens of monitors.
Object Search
To power up the very limited visual intelligence capabilities of surveillance cameras (especially regular IP cameras, which are the most common system investments for security purposes due to budget concerns), either in indoor or outdoor scenes, Object Search quickly identifies specific objects based on a human face, head, and body or vehicle out of a single or crowded scene.
With simply a click, searching multiple objects simultaneously in any area of interest coming up with a powerful searching result will be complete within seconds or even milliseconds. Then, the security guard or manager can select suspicious images to bookmark for further video applications such as Appearance Focus or Behavior Focus. Object Search shows a new way of video search to navigate investigators to the specific timing of an event in seconds.
Usually, the warehouse provides visiting truck drivers with a dedicated lounge area to wait while orders are being loaded or unloaded; that also means, only the internal staff should have access to the warehouse or distribution area.
Remote warehouse walk-throughs by supervisors, team leaders, or management by using AiMS Object Search can help check key areas like shipping bays, receiving bays, entrances, and exits quickly and precisely. Whether the security personnel is stationed at every entrance or exit to the building or inspects any vehicles leaving the warehouse to check for any unauthorized stock leaving the premises, it can all be discovered by managers within minutes with Object Search.
When the theft incident occurs, using Object Search to check key areas including shipping and receiving bays, entrances and exits, and restricted areas like the manager’s office can make the most rapid and perfect search result to help lock down specific people or vehicles, and locate the suspects’ route or the last location.
Appearance Focus
Once the initial lockdown of the target object is done with Object Search, another innovative searching function, Appearance Focus provides ultra-robust search results to boost up the investigation efficiency.
SkyREC Appearance Focus is ultra user-friendly designed with visual instructions for users to make rapid searches and match on the target objects. First, Appearance Focus enables users to filter hours of security video footage in seconds to quickly pinpoint what they are looking for.
Users then have great flexibility to customize their search conditions with key physical descriptions such as clothing type, clothing color, accessories, face mask, gender, age, moving direction, posture, behavior, vehicle type, or vehicle color categorization. In addition, Appearance Focus enables users to upload the picture of the target to fasten the investigation process.
In the case of parking management in the warehouse, staff and visitors’ parking should be located separately from the warehouse operations; no private vehicles should be near the warehouse. If there is a theft incident occurs, security guards or managers can use Appearance Focus to quickly trace the suspicious vehicles according to the impression of the witnesses for further investigations.
Behavior Focus
Finally, on those post-event investigations requiring details on the crime scene and the surroundings, SkyREC Behavior Focus performs beyond other security video systems by bringing superior AI analytics on both video recording and playback.
To check wider and deeper into the incidents that occur in the same area on different timelines, Behavior Focus not only synchronizes video playback for all objects by uncovering the beginning and ending time of each behavior on the time bar but also simultaneously zooms in to show the details of each specific target. Users can accordingly figure out how the incident occurred and even find out related suspects in the warehouse theft.
A robust security system in the warehouse not only deter criminals but also provide evidence of the theft that is caught on camera. Just like the cameras should be strategically placed in high-risk areas, the up-to-date video management system should be embedded with intelligent video analytics powered by AI; such as AiMS, which supports the warehouse to minimize the human efforts from daily security management operations and keeps the cargo as well as personnel safe.
