Physical security: access, keys, surveillance

When people talk about warehouse security, many immediately think of expensive alarms and guards. In fact the most effective protection is very simple: knowing who entered the warehouse, when and why. Without an answer to that, even the most modern camera cannot show the cause of a shortage. Physical security rests on three foundations: access control, keys and surveillance.

Access control

Divide those who enter the warehouse into four groups: your own staff, drivers and loaders, supplier representatives, and customers and guests. Each needs its own rule:

• staff enter with their own pass (card, code or list), and access is restricted after working hours;
• drivers and loaders go only as far as the loading area and do not enter the storage zone;
• outsiders enter only accompanied by a warehouse employee and with an entry in the visitor log;
• entry outside working hours and at weekends requires the manager's consent and a separate record.

The visitor log can be on paper, but it must show date, time, name, purpose and time of departure. An entry such as "came in, took something" is not a log. Where possible, separate the loading and storage zones with a separate door or barrier so an outsider cannot walk up to the goods. In wholesale depots and shopping-centre stockrooms, where many customers come and go, a physical barrier (door, turnstile, fence) between the sales floor and the warehouse area matters especially.

Keys and codes

Keys are recorded in a log: who holds them, since when, whether a duplicate exists. Only the manager may authorise a copy. The alarm code should be personal, not shared, so it is visible who opened and closed the warehouse. When an employee leaves, the key is collected, the code deleted or the lock changed on the same day. For the most valuable goods use a two-key lock: one key with the storekeeper and the other with the manager, so nobody can open it alone. Now and then "take stock" of the keys too: a surplus duplicate is often found not with the storekeeper but with a former manager, a guard or a previous tenant.

Surveillance: what a camera should show

Cameras should cover the entrance and exit, the loading area, the receiving desk and the valuable-goods zone. Keep recordings for at least 30 days. The most common problem is not the absence of a camera but that nobody knows it has stopped working. So open the footage once a week, identify blind spots and check that the camera clock matches the time in 1C, otherwise it is hard to link an event to a document. Access to recordings should be restricted: a storekeeper must not be able to erase footage in which they appear.

A separate zone for valuable goods

Do not keep small, valuable goods such as phones, medicines and electronics on ordinary shelves. Keep them in a fenced zone or a safe, record entry in a separate log and count more often. Keep the list of people admitted to the zone short, two or three names, and record the reason for every entry. For such a zone a weekly sample count may be enough, while a monthly count suffices for the general warehouse. This is an approach proportionate to risk: effort goes where the goods are worth most.

What the auditor checks

• the condition of doors, locks and fences;
• the key log and the number of duplicates;
• five entries from the visitor log compared with camera footage;
• the depth of the camera archive: is 30 days really stored;
• entries outside working hours and the reasons given;
• whether the fire exit is blocked and whether extinguishers are in date.

For example, comparing evening entries in the month of a shortage with camera footage may turn up several entries missing from the log. That does not yet prove fault, but it sets the direction of the work: issue documents and stock adjustments for those days are examined separately.

Conclusion

Physical security needs order, not expensive equipment: who enters, who holds the keys, what is recorded. A week or two is enough to introduce these rules, and costly equipment can be added once the routine has settled. In a review, OmborAudit looks at how the warehouse actually answers these three questions.