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JACKSONVILLE, Fla.—When Winn-Dixie Supermarkets emerged from Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2006, its first order of business was to focus on asset protection. “We worked with store operations and one of the first things we did was develop a plan to upgrade the physical security systems in all stores,” said Dan Faketty, vice president, asset protection at Winn-Dixie, on May 12, during a Webinar titled, “Real-World Best Practices for Retail Security: Getting the most out of your retail monitoring service.”
“When we came on board in 2006, we walked into a decentralized alarm system,” said Faketty. “They were utilizing eight different alarm companies and had no specifications on equipment, no scope of work for installations, no specs on programming the system and, most importantly, no policies on responding to alarm events.”
As a result of their actions, theft is down 70 percent.
The goal was to centralize its security operations and make sure all of its 515 stores had the exact same security program in place. This meant centralizing its key controls, upgrading its alarm system in all its stores, and installing a network-enabled, digital CCTV system that is linked with the POS interface. “We installed the exact same equipment in all stores, the location of the equipment was in the same place in every store, the same alarm program was written and downloaded to all stores in the company,” he said.
One of its primary challenges was streamlining the arming and disarming of its stores. “We didn’t know when buildings were armed or not and who had access in and out of the buildings and this caused serious concern,” he said. “We had a brand new staff and our internal theft cases were increasing at an alarming rate.”
The chain invested in all new equipment for its stores, and made sure that equipment was both customized and consistent throughout the chain. Procedures were put in place that the chain’s central station, Checkpoint Systems, would be notified if a store hadn’t been armed within a designated timeframe. For example, management is unable to disarm a store more than an hour prior to the store’s scheduled opening and must arm the system an hour after closing.
In addition, different zones of the store must be armed separately. Both the cash office and the pharmacy must be armed before the perimeter security system is activated. For additional security, if a pharmacist forgets to arm their area, a manager can arm the system but only the pharmacist has the code to disarm the system upon opening.
The stores’ receiving docks are on an automatic schedule for enhanced security. The system automatically disarms at 6 a.m. and arms at noon. However, if deliveries occur after noon, the system can be disarmed, but will be automatically rearmed once the delivery door is closed, said Faketty.
The store has also put policies in place to deal with a burglary, post-event. The actions of store personnel are reviewed as well as the audio files from Checkpoint’s dispatcher.
Because all the stores have the same security program, that has also eased the process of training staff. The chain deploys a “train the trainer” program throughout its stores.
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