City of Westfield, Indiana: One of the Happiest (and Most Secure) Cities in the U.S.
By Kevin Houle
After visiting the City of Westfield, Indiana a couple of times, I quickly understood how they are earning their reputation as one of the “Happiest Cities”. I have always felt welcome there. I am honored to be able to help secure this fast growing city, offer such a versatile product, and work with a partner like Open Control Systems. The City of Westfield is a great example of forward-thinking during a time of growth.
PROJECT AT A GLANCE
End User: City of Westfield, Indiana, U.S.
System Integrator: Open Control Systems, LLC
Project Type: Physical access control
Location: Westfield, Indiana
Scope: To secure 250 doors 24/7/365 in a population of 36,854
Identiv Solution: Hirsch Physical Access Control System
Customer Profile
The City of Westfield is located in Hamilton County, Indiana, United States, with a population of 36,854. Westfield is in the Indianapolis Metropolitan Area. The city is fast growing and has been named one of the top 10 “Happiest Cities in the U.S.” and “Best Small Town in the Nation”.
Situation
Growing from a small town to an incorporated city, the City of Westfield needed a robust and reliable physical access control system (PACS) to secure its public spaces. In 1996, the city began installing a PACS infrastructure, starting with its Public Safety Building.
The Public Safety Building operates 24/7/365 and the doors are opened approximately 200 times per day, which equates to nearly 1.5 million transactions per door annually. The facility required a secure physical access with minimal interaction. Over the years, the physical access footprint of the City of Westfield has grown, and by 2016, the new Grand Park encountered similar challenges. Though the entire facility is not a 24/7/365, workload demands similar to the that of the Public Safety Building are required. The Grand Park — comprised of the second largest indoor soccer facility in the U.S., concession buildings, and more — featured ten buildings with different requirements and functions that needed to be interconnected and ready to receive commands on-demand. The City of Westfield needed a product with a proven history to accept the challenge of uncertainty and the ability to adapt to extreme working conditions. In regards to the Grand Park’s indoor arena, the building will eventually be attached to a hotel and will act as a 24/7/365 facility in some capacity. With a building of 400,000 square feet spanning 32 doors and growing, the city quickly realized that many access control competitors were falling short of the demand.
Solution
Identiv has been making the most reliable hardware and software for 35 years, starting with Hirsch Electronics. The Hirsch brand carries an implied reliability factor that is well known in the physical security industry. Isolated circuits, fused components, replaceable parts, and a modular design helps keep Hirsch products installed once and rarely visited again. The City of Westfield, Indiana installed a Hirsch system in 1996 and since that time, has not had to replace one component of the system. Since 2011, the system has been maintained, serviced, and managed by Open Control Systems, LLC.
Identiv’s Hirsch Velocity is an integrated software platform that manages access control and security operations in thousands of different facilities, from single high-security rooms to multi-building, multi-location campuses. Velocity allows end-users to control doors, gates, turnstiles, elevators, and other building equipment, monitor users as they move around a facility, prevent unwanted access, maintain compliance, and provide a robust audit trail. The modular design and the scalable architecture of Hirsch Mx Controllers enable an installation to start small and grow large, from a single controller system to a larger, multi-site enterprise.
Identiv’s uTrust ScramblePad keypad readers are a family of access control products that provide high-security keypad functionality, offered as a keypad only or keypad/reader combination for two-factor authentication. The ScramblePad design is specified in many of the world’s most secure locations due to its high-security scramble feature that randomly orders the digits each time the “START” button is pressed. The random scrambling prevents the acquisition of a user code via pattern recognition, and also prevents keypad wear that leaves a tell-tale impression of the numbers used in a valid PIN.
Benefits
By choosing Identiv’s Hirsch PACS, the City of Westfield, Indiana continues to grow exponentially year after year, all the while maintaining the safety of its residents and visitors.
Hirsch by Identiv: Keeping the City of Westfield Safe for 20 Years
