Based on its success so far in managing turnkey screening operations for international customers and providing integrated checkpoint screening solutions for the U.S. military, Rapiscan Systems is more aggressively marketing its capabilities as an integrator, a company official tells HSR.
This isn’t a “revolutionary change” for Rapiscan but “we are definitely being more aggressive in marketing our capabilities in what we call broadly the whole security integration space,” says Andrew Goldsmith, vice president of Global Marketing at Rapiscan. “That’s a very deliberate part of our strategy.”
In the past few years Rapiscan has successfully built up port security and border security screening capabilities for Puerto Rico and Mexico and last year was contracted by Albania to provide similar solutions. The agreements call for Rapiscan to install various types of its cargo inspection systems and then provide the operators as well in what is essentially a fee-per-scan business model.
Rapiscan also won the lion’s share of a multiple award contract to provide the Defense Department with a number of integrated entry control point security systems to help protect overseas military bases. In some cases the company has integrated data from body scanners, Advanced Technology X-Ray systems and CCTV cameras into a single screen to be viewed and analyzed by a soldier who is remotely located, Goldsmith says.
Rapiscan is a division of OSI Systems [OSIS].
Now the company has “more and more customers” asking it to do more with its inspection systems it is installing for them and for help solving bigger problems such as how do to stand-off explosive detection so that operators manning a checkpoint are out of harm’s way if someone tries to detonate a bomb at the checkpoint, Goldsmith says. Another example is help in improving efficiencies at ports of entry where operators at ports have to manually inspect X-Ray images while also reviewing cargo manifest data or biographic data, he says.
There’s also interest in larger scale, more complex physical security integration management, Goldsmith says, such as networking CCTV cameras, access control, identity management and other capabilities along with the non-intrusive inspection systems that Rapiscan provides to achieve greater “security awareness.”
“We’re making the evolution if you will from just being a hardware manufacturer to being a company that can integrate and make the whole better than the sum of the parts by using software to combine not only our existing systems with each other but also hook those systems up to other databases and third party security systems and so on to create…true security intelligence for the customer,” Goldsmith says.
One example of the work Rapiscan is currently doing that involves integration beyond what it has done previously includes the turnkey screening services work for Mexico, part of which is creating checkpoint design solutions. In addition, Goldsmith says Rapiscan has also developed software that is used to network the imaging data taken from vehicle inspections with other data, such as the history of a truck that is crossing the border into Mexico and the manifest data, allowing for greater awareness of the particular vehicle. Previously, the additional data had to be drawn separately, which was more time consuming, says.
Rapiscan also helped Mexico create a secondary inspection system where the data that is being collected for the operators can also be viewed remotely at a command center, Goldsmith says. If there is a concern about something, an operator can flag security officials at the command center to have a look, he says. In addition, Rapiscan is combining CCTV camera feeds, he adds.
Goldsmith says that software integration work has been internally developed within Rapiscan.
“The beauty of this is we’re working with the customer to start to turn the X-Ray image, that inspection data, into more of bigger picture security intelligence and I see this as the future of the industry,” Goldsmith says. “How do we take the data that our equipment has been providing and how do we make it more usable from an analysis standpoint to really help us get much smarter and much more proactive overall about security intelligence and analyzing threats and really seeing patterns and making better use of resources.”
For one airport customer Rapiscan has networked a number of its MVXR 5000 hold baggage screening systems so that the inspection images feeds to a remote inspection room, enabling operator efficiencies, Goldsmith says. More customers are becoming interested in similar networking at airport checkpoints for carry-on baggage screening, he says, adding that it can make a difference in labor cost savings and efficiency.
Goldsmith also says that air cargo companies that are screening parcels for explosives ale also interested in more integrated solutions that can bring data together from inspection systems, the way bill, the weight of the package, and more to improve their analysis and to better manage general compliance regulations for customs agencies. He says he can’t identify specific customers for this but Rapiscan is creating integrated solutions for some.