Fritz Esker is a new contributor to Self-Service World. To submit a comment about this story, click here. Two California companies have joined forces to bring self-service to a new type of deployment, one that improves the visitor check-in process at offices. Santa Clara-based Sun Microsystems Inc. and San Diego-based APUNIX have launched a self-service application that not only allows Sun Microsystems employees and visitors to check themselves through security, but also allows employees to pre-register their business visitors online before they arrive. The system has worked so well that it's garnered quite a bit of attention from other companies. | story continues below... | advertisement | | |
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"We've been approached by several companies who want to take a look at it and see how it functions," said Larry Kanzaki, security technology group manager for Sun Microsystems. In an average year, about 150,000 visitors and 33,400 employees pass through the doors of one of Sun Microsystems' campuses, which are located in places like California, Massachusetts, Singapore, India, and Japan. So Sun needed an efficient way to deal with the constant flow of security checks. Sun conducts business in 160 countries around the world, and the system can be tailored to meet different security laws in different countries. The kiosks also feature a marketing video about Sun Microsystems in several different languages. The new system has a number of advantages, said Steve Kruschke, manager of new technologies and applications at Sun. When employees register business visitors online before they arrive, not only does it take the paper trail out of the equation but it also saves visitors from having to wait in long lines at the security desk when they arrive. The lobby officer already knows that a specific visitor is expected at a specific time. If a person will be visiting several days in a row, they only need to be registered once. And since visitors cannot pre-register themselves, the system has inherent levels of security. "By having employees pre-register visitors, it greatly assists people with the speed in which they can check in," he said. The system also runs background checks to ensure no visitor is on the Commerce Department Denied Persons List — a list of people who have been denied export privileges by the Commerce Department. The system also identifies the visitor's country of origin. Before the new system, security officers manually issued paper badges. After the visit ended, the badges were returned to the lobby officer, who then filed the badges alphabetically in an archive. With pre-registration, unmanned kiosks used at the security check save time as well, since a visitor can print out his own badge using a self-service touchscreen interface. Once a visitor is pre-registered, he simply keys in his name and a badge is issued. The employee being visited gets an e-mail or a page informing him that his guest has arrived. The system also is helpful for employees who lose access cards. Employees can print out temporary badges at the kiosks. The back end In June 2005, Sun and APUNIX released the visitor management system, which uses Sun's Solaris operating system and the Java platform. Sun wanted a system that used its own OS, as opposed to Windows, for business and marketing reasons. An off-the-shelf Solaris solution was not an option, since none existed. APUNIX built the system with a content development tool that designed the application without creating a completely new program. "The real challenge was more in the self-service photo ID," a Sun requirement for security check-in, said APUNIX co-founder Peter Berens. To work properly, the kiosk needed high-resolution image-capturing capabilities and automatic photo production. It also had to be fully integrated with the company's HR database. Storing the information electronically has also made research more efficient and has cut costs. Before the new system, Sun stored old badges at an off-site location. "It was a labor-intensive process to find those sheets of papers and logs," Kruschke said. Sun said the system is also helping it cut costs. Instead of having to pay a person to man each security desk in each location, the process is streamlined. But the human element is not completely removed. A central operator monitors the issuing of IDs, ensuring nothing slips through the cracks. Overall, however, the number of people needed for security is reduced. Now APUNIX is working to expand its own customized product to new markets, allowing the company to break from traditional self-service applications for retail environments. "We haven't found a vehicle to market it yet," Berens said. "We're looking for a distribution partner."
