SecurityArena

Facility Management

Issues with Selecting a Site Location

• Visibility
  • Usually a low visibility is desired.
  • Surrounding terrain
  • Building markings and signs
  • Types of neighbors
  • Population of the area
• Surrounding area and external entities
  • Crime rate, riots, terrorism attacks
  • Proximity to police, medical, and fire stations
  • Possible hazards from surrounding area
• Accessibility
  • Road access
  • Traffic
  • Proximity to airports, train stations, and highways
• Natural disasters
  • Likelihood of floods, tornadoes, earthquakes, or hurricanes
  • Hazardous terrain (mudslides, falling rock from mountains, or excessive snow or rain)
• Services
  • Joint Tenancy. Are access to HVAC and environmental controls shared in building?
  • External Services. Proximity to local Fire, Police and medical facilities

Concerns during Facility Design

• The load / Weight. How much weight that can be held of a building’s walls, floors and ceilings needs to be estimated and projected to ensure that the building will not collapse in different situations?
• Positive flow (water and gas lines). Material should flow out of building, not in.
• Internal partitions. Many buildings have hung ceilings, meaning the interior partitions may not extend above the ceiling; therefore an intruder can lift a ceiling panel and climb over the partition.

Guidelines when designing and building a facility

• Walls
  • Acceptable fire and load rating
  • Floor to ceiling
  • Reinforcements for secured areas
• Doors
  • Fire rating
  • Resistant to forcible entry
  • Emergency marking
  • Appropriate placement
  • Secure hinges
  • Directional opening
  • Electric door locks should revert to fail safe settings rather than fail secure to allow safe evacuation of personnel in case of power outages
  • If glass is used then it should be shatterproof or bulletproof
• Ceilings
  • Fire rating
  • Weight-bearing rating
  • Drop-ceiling considerations
• Windows
  • Translucent or opaque requirements
  • Shatterproof
  • Alarms
  • Placement
  • Accessibility to intruders
• Flooring
  • Raised flooring (electrical grounding)
  • Non conducting surface and material
• Heating, ventilation, and air conditioning
  • Positive air pressure
  • Protected intake vents
  • Dedicated power lines
  • Emergency shutoff valves and switches
• Electric power supplies
  • Dedicated feeders to required areas
  • Backup and alternate power supplies
  • Clean and steady power source
  • Placement and access to distribution panels and circuit breakers
• Water and gas lines
  • Shutoff valves—labeled and brightly painted for visibility
  • Positive flow (material flows out of building, not in)
  • Placement—properly located and labeled
• Fire detection and suppression
  • Placement of sensors and detectors
  • Placement of suppression systems
  • Type of detectors and suppression agents

Window Types

• Standard No extra protection. Cheapest and the lowest level of protection.
• Tempered Glass is heated and then cooled suddenly to increase its integrity and strength.
• Acrylic Type of plastic instead of glass. Polycarbonate acrylics are stronger than regular acrylics.
• Wired Mesh of wire is embedded between two sheets of glass. This wire helps to prevent the glass from shattering.
• Laminated Plastic layer between two outer glass layers. Plastic layer helps to increase the strength against breakage.
• Solar window film Provides extra security by being tinted and extra strength through the film’s material.
• Security film Transparent film is applied to the glass to increase its strength.