How Warehouse Security Cameras Protect Your Inventory and Supply Chain

The goods and materials that fuel our economy pass through an often lengthy and intricate network of lots, vehicles, facilities, and checkpoints before they reach their final destinations. Warehouses play a crucial role in protecting inventory and facilitating commerce, and their crucial nature makes good warehouse security a necessity. For warehouses big and small—and in an industry racked with rising rates of cargo theft and other crime—security cameras keep high-value goods safe as cargo moves in and out. 

Supply Chain Security: What It Is and Why It’s So Important 

Anyone who’s ever eaten food purchased from a grocery store, worn store-bought clothing, or used any other product they didn’t make entirely by themselves has benefited from a supply chain. The term “supply chain” refers to the facilities, people, resources, and processes that a product follows from its beginning as raw materials to its destination: the consumer. 

Supply chain security is vital not only to the security of each business and its goods, but to the safety of the economy as a whole. As we build out and maintain our supply chains around the globe, we must anticipate criminal activity and include security measures to combat it. Tools such as access control to sensitive areas, perimeter surveillance at docks and storage lots, cargo alarms, and warehouse security cameras can help supply chains withstand threats and continue running smoothly.

Biggest Threats to Warehouse Security 

Warehouses aren’t exactly a picnic to secure; there are a variety of reasons why warehouses need more tailored, flexible security than other facilities.

Catastrophic Cargo Theft 

When inventory is stolen as it moves along the supply chain, the ensuing domino effect is far-reaching and costly. Cargo theft costs American companies billions of dollars every year, and not just in lost inventory; theft leads to shipping delays, which leads to damaged customer relationships and a poor reputation for your business.

Expensive Goods

Warehouses are usually home to highly valuable inventory, making them vulnerable to theft and organized crime. 

Heavy Traffic 

The large volume of people who pass through a warehouse poses an inherent risk. Between warehouse employees, truck drivers, visiting vendors, and other individuals, this constant influx of people increases the chance that unauthorized access—and the other crimes that most often follow—will occur. 

Large and Complex Facilities

The complicated and often expansive layout of most warehouses makes surveillance all the more essential. Most warehouses come with loading docks, various points of entry, bulky shelving, and other features that naturally create dangerous blind spots. Surveillance cameras give more eyes to your security staff, so they can patrol these complex areas more effectively.

Securing a Warehouse 

The modern warehouse is a hub of commerce and logistics, and is vulnerable to theft and other crimes.

Visitor Supervision 

The nature of the work at a warehouse requires you to welcome and rely upon visiting parties to deliver and ship goods. High-quality surveillance equipment provides a critical layer of oversight over your warehouse’s visitors and helps you manage the risk of your external vendors, suppliers, contractors, and other third-party partners committing unauthorized access and causing additional issues.

Operational Optimization 

Contrary to popular belief, surveillance does not serve only to prevent and record criminal activity. A good security system will be able to help you analyze and streamline the logistics of your warehouse, enabling you to identify and manage bottlenecks and delays in your processes.

Surveillance is also helpful in ensuring that employees and partners are complying with OSHA regulations and other safety protocols. 

Crime Deterrence & Incident Management 

When securing a warehouse, you must prepare for the worst. Anticipating crime and deploying crime-deterrent measures is half the battle, and ensuring that suspicious activity is detected and dealt with quickly will go even further to mitigate loss and maintain your warehouse’s overall security. 

Warehouse Cameras: A Modern Solution to Age-Old Problems

While the security problems facing warehouses and other points on the supply chain can seem daunting, modern surveillance technology provides the perfect solution. Today’s warehouse security cameras represent a major leap forward in security technology. Far from the grainy, stationary CCTV cameras of yesteryear, today’s security cameras—especially the cutting-edge units innovated by LVT—are smarter, more flexible, and far more capable. 

Featuring independent power, real-time monitoring and alerts, and high-resolution coverage even in low light conditions, these industry-disrupting security cameras offer some key benefits for warehouse managers. 

Loss Prevention 

Warehouse cameras play a critical role in preventing losses. Their presence discourages both internal and external theft, especially when they’re strategically placed in vulnerable areas such as loading docks and entryways. 

Mobile security units, including those from LVT, can be moved to wherever they’re needed at the moment. Their real-time alerts can also help you to mitigate loss from crime by responding as soon as the system detects something suspicious. LVT also offers building mounted cameras and pole mounted cameras to help provide total site security across all your facilities.

Managing Inventory and Employees 

The cameras you install in your warehouse can provide a unique perspective on its operation, allowing you to fix problems and improve your warehouse’s logistics. Additionally, when employees are aware of cameras, they’re encouraged to follow correct protocols and work efficiently.

Complete & Uninterrupted Protection

Modern security cameras, equipped with deterrent features such as floodlights and speakers—are highly effective at deterring criminals before any damage is done. 

When crime still occurs, however, these cameras also aid tremendously in incident response and evidence collection. High-resolution surveillance footage can provide crucial insights for investigation, liability protection, and the prevention of future incidents. 

Flexible, up-to-date warehouse cameras like LVT’s mobile security units provide a strong layer of protection through end-to-end coverage, easy scalability, integration with existing security and inventory management systems, and real-time analysis and alerts when things don’t look right. 

Optimal Warehouse Camera Locations 

Every part of a warehouse serves a purpose, and each space needs the highest level of protection. With LVT, set up total site security across your warehouse, parking lots, loading docks, perimeters, and more.

Loading Dock Cameras 

Every inch of a warehouse represents crucial infrastructure for your products; however, spots with extraordinarily high inventory traffic need extra TLC. Cameras stationed at your warehouse’s loading docks help deter, detect, and capture crime in such a busy, vulnerable, and important area.

Yard Security Cameras 

The yard of a warehouse is located outside, and serves as a staging, loading, and temporary storage area. Resources in the warehouse yard are more vulnerable than the rest, and require strong security and efficient management. Yard surveillance cameras can help not only to safeguard products, but also to identify opportunities to streamline and improve operations. 

Warehouse Exterior Cameras 

Even though the most valuable products and processes typically stay within the walls of your warehouse, there are plenty of threats of which to be aware on the other side of the door. Stationing cameras to watch your warehouse’s exterior helps eliminate blind spots and keep thieves, vandals, and loiterers away. 

Perimeter Fence Cameras 

Just as important as it is to secure the interior of your warehouse, its outside perimeter is just as vital to keep safe and secure. Mounting cameras on the fence or perimeter of a warehouse property can help control access to the property and protect inventory.

Stack Up Your Warehouse Security with LVT

Because they are the backbone of any supply chain, warehouses need to be well secured with comprehensive, cutting-edge security technology. 

LiveView Technologies is a pioneer in supply chain security, and we are committed to preventing cargo theft and other supply disruptions with our customizable security solutions. LVT security units are solar-powered, independent from surrounding infrastructure, rapidly deployed, and proven time and time again to protect resources and facilities in real time. Schedule a demo today, and discover how you can elevate your warehouse’s security.