Honeywells Scott Harkins (left) and Boeings Bryan Palma shake hands following their joint announcement on the show floor at ISC West.
By Rodney Bosch
LAS VEGAS — Honeywell announced at ISC West on Thursday it will partner with Boeing Co. to create an integrated security and building management platform to help improve safety and operations at large facilities.
The system provides a comprehensive view of alarm-triggering events using three-dimensional high-definition models and video surveillance, delivering real-time, detailed visual information so security personnel can effectively deploy a more accurate response, according to a press statement.
The solution will combine Honeywell's extensive security and building management portfolios — including its range of security sensors, video surveillance, access control, and intrusion-detection systems — to feed information into Boeing's Visual Security Operations Console (VSOC).
The agreement will allow Honeywell to integrate Boeing's physical security information management (PSIM) platform with its Pro-Watch enterprise-class access control solution, Scott Harkins, president and general manager of Honeywell Systems, said during the show-floor announcement.
"This offers our 160 Honeywell Integrated Systems [HIS] dealers — or Pro-Watch dealers — an opportunity to take their skill set in security integration and expand it and help them very easily add integrations of products and solutions that aren't just security related, bringing new and real value to their customer base that they have never seen before," Harkins said.
SSI spoke with Boeing representatives and Harkins following the announcement, who provided examples of typical VSOC deployments.
"Our largest customer in the world is the U.S. State Department. We have 280 sites worldwide and all of them have different CCTV systems, different physical access systems. This VSOC product allows them to tie all of those things together and make it look like they are all the same," said John Thompson, Jr., the Boeing manager of the VSOC program. "A Honeywell dealer can now go into a customer who doesn't have Honeywell equipment and he can still offer a solution by tying in other disparate systems through our interface."
Honeywell and Boeing first initiated talks about partnering during last year's ASIS conference in Dallas, according to Bryan Palma, vice president of business development for Boeing's intelligence and security solutions unit.
"Honeywell is in the business of making alarms, making sensors, making CCTV, and they have a large installed base out there. Those are the inputs that we need to come to together," he said. "On these large projects, having two major players come together, allows the customer a seamless integration. And, of course, from a business perspective Honeywell's distribution channel is very mature and very expansive. That helps us, being a large global company that needs access to that type of channel."
Rodney Bosch is managing editor for SECURITY SALES & INTEGRATION.