Nonprofit Goodwill Industries installs high-tech LP system

SPRINGFIELD, Ill.—Despite their nonprofit status, Goodwill Industries, a $2.4 billion retail and social service organization, suffers from the same loss prevention issues as traditional retailers. Roger Rangel, loss prevention and safety consultant for Goodwill Industries International, is charged with improving and testing solutions to help protect the retailer from internal and external theft, including the monitoring of its donor drop-off zones, where the retailer generates goods for sale.

Last December, the Land of Lincoln branch began the installation of a new system that would allow Rangel, and other executive loss prevention employees, to remotely monitor activity within its stores. The store installed Milestone’s XProtect Professional IP video management software to manage its cameras. The corporation also added MobiDEOS, a Blackberry application that allows Rangel to view cameras remotely.

“This system allows us to maneuver and make decisions either remotely or onsite on the Internet,” he said. “We’re hoping that the system cuts down on cost as far as expense the agency incurs from traveling from one location to another.”

Using the Blackberry application means Rangel can be notified of a situation and respond must faster, with better information. “It allows me to tap into the situation quicker and view something almost real time,” he said. “It works for us to strategically and logically make better business decisions.”

The store was able to integrate its existing cameras into the IP system. “Sure, who doesn’t want state-of-the-art high resolution cameras, and we wanted them, but the neat thing is that you can use whatever you have,” he said. Rangel said the stores would consider investing in more cameras “when the funds become available.”

Although the store has not integrated any video analytic capabilities into the system, it now has the infrastructure in place to add things like people counting or monitoring traffic patterns in the future.

The store also integrated its POS system into the platform. “This will allow us to develop the trends and analysis needed for us to spot the anomalies in the database and to view, historically, any lost indicators and enable us to respond proactively rather than reactively,” he said.