Patrol Monitoring and

Activity Monitoring

For a decade, I worked as a professional manager in companies providing manned security services and cleaning. My tasks included ensuring that our manned services met the professional standards expected by our clients. Continuous inspection involved a great deal of work and travel, as the sites were often far apart. I usually assessed the quality of the service provided by performing spot checks, appearing unexpectedly at the locations where security guards or cleaners were working. During these inspections, I typically checked whether our employees were at the expected location and performing their duties properly. Unfortunately, I often found guards sleeping or cleaners sitting idly. On one occasion, I even took the radio from beside a deeply sleeping guard without him noticing.

Our clients’ feedback was frequently strongly negative regarding sleeping or idle security guards and cleaners, and I found no exaggeration in these criticisms. Following these experiences, I started looking for a solution in the market to ensure that the tasks expected of the staff were carried out on time. At that time, I "encountered" the patrol monitoring device manufactured by MOHAnet as a client, and with the help of this device, and later with the cooperation of the company's development team, we created a comprehensive patrol monitoring and activity monitoring system, which we have continuously developed ever since. As a result of more than 15 years of successful collaboration, I am now proud to say that I am no longer a client but strengthen the MOHAnet team as the head of the company's activity monitoring division, overseeing the further development of the system's services.

The unique remote monitoring system developed by MOHAnet, supported by a dispatcher service with notifications and automated report sending, monitors in real-time the execution of activities by the staff. It also allows for immediate intervention in case of any lapses, thereby preventing losses due to inadequate performance.

I have gained expertise in both fields, manned security and remote monitoring solutions, through my studies and work experience. This enables me to more effectively align client needs with practical implementation. In my opinion, no serious company today can afford the risk of providing manned security or cleaning services to clients without the necessary technological background for real-time staff monitoring. Real-time remote supervision of staff activities makes the provided service transparent for the provider, strengthens client trust through electronic proof of completion, and significantly minimizes the risk of missed activities.

I have been developing the activity monitoring system presented here for over 15 years, and it has now become my profession. Thanks to our development team, the patrol monitoring and activity monitoring system has been implemented as a highly versatile standalone unit in the MonitoringBook 2.0 remote monitoring platform, making it the fifth useful module in the series. During the design of the module, maintaining a high degree of flexibility for the system and maximally supporting all customer requirements were important considerations.

The patrol monitoring and activity monitoring system consists of deployable, field, active signal receivers, passive transmitters, diagnostic data from these devices, and other technical information, as well as the processing of all these according to a predefined methodology. The data for each activity is recorded by a portable signal receiver by scanning the transmitters placed in the service area, along with GPS coordinates and motion data (accelerometer), then transmitted to a cloud-based remote monitoring server. In addition to the above, the portable signal receiver is also capable of immediate emergency requests or fall detection, ensuring the safety and accident protection of the staff.

A professionally trained dispatcher center ensures the real-time remote monitoring of various periodically recurring activities. The parameters for remote monitoring of the staff performing the tasks can be most flexibly adjusted according to client needs and expectations. This can apply to monitoring execution at specific times or to random times generated by a random number function to avoid predictability.

The alert supervision module of MonitoringBook monitors the activities performed based on the rules set in the patrol monitoring module. It sends a real-time alert about the execution from the portable device placed on-site or logs its omission. In case of omission, the remote monitoring system immediately generates an alert. The dispatcher acts according to a predefined procedure, urging the employee responsible for the task to complete the missed activity or provide a justification for the omission. If the action is unsuccessful, the dispatcher notifies the next designated person by the user, for example, the supervisor, whose intervention can prevent the risk caused by the missed task. These actions are always recorded by the system, which can be retrieved and sent to the user in a graphical table format as an automatic email report.

Using the deployed patrol monitoring device, the staff can preemptively notify the supervisory system if an activity is missed, but only with a justification, which can be selected from a list or provided as a textual explanation. Due to its structure, the system also includes functions that support supervised activities, significantly reducing the administrative burden on the staff.

Activity monitoring includes manned security services, patrol response, cleaning, maintenance, operation, checking the visual reading of various physical parameters, and sending and logging data observed at inspection points. The system can be used for - without limitation - work time tracking, documenting the entry and exit of persons and vehicles, issuing keys, handing over and receiving packages, inspecting clothes, packages, and vehicles, conducting alcohol or drug tests, shift changes, logging in and out, alertness checks, emergency requests, and essentially recording any regularly required information electronically by the operator. Various extracts and reports can be created from the incoming activity data, allowing the analysis of the performed tasks and providing opportunities for process optimization, thereby improving efficiency.

Replacing human resources for activity monitoring also results in significant payroll cost savings for the service provider, substantially increasing the profitability of the provided service.

With the system's help, coordinating a complex activity carried out at multiple inspection points can also be easily supported.

We have an application area where the administration of vehicle entry occurs at a checkpoint. This is followed by further administration at the internal unloading point, which also documents in the same system, with the addition of a computer workstation. Even the vehicle exit can be authorized here, becoming visible at the exit point as well. Thus, the exit can also be documented in a system, from which an extract such as a gate pass or entry log can be requested. This is just one example among many similar solutions.

The system has enormous flexibility and can be parameterized almost unlimitedly according to user needs, allowing numerous settings, recording, and usage modes, potentially entirely replacing paper-based logging and administration of the given activity. Thanks to these services, the system's operation is entirely unique in the market.

After implementation, the improvement in efficiency is immediately noticeable in the first month, as it enhances the real-time supervision of employees working geographically distant from each other, simplifies the work of the person responsible for supervision to an extreme degree, and prevents damages resulting from missed activities.

If the activity monitoring system is integrated into the enterprise management system, significant cost savings can be achieved with appropriate regime measures, while the company's reputation improves in the eyes of clients. This is because every employee is under supervision at all times, without the need for an inspector to be assigned to each one.

With this system, continuous monitoring makes the service measurable and transparent for our subscribers to their clients, preventing quality deterioration or even more severe consequences due to inadequate performance.

For comments or questions, please feel free to contact me at p.ungar@mohanet.com. Based on the last 15 years of experience, I am always striving to find a good solution quickly for emerging new needs or special tasks.