Case Study

Pharmaceutical Warehouse Intrusion Alarm: Protecting High-Value Inventory with 48-Zone Detection

Zero false dispatches in 9 months; response time on confirmed events under 6 minutes.

Client
Pharma distribution warehouse
Location
Tongi
Delivered
2025
Project Status
2025

Client Organization

Pharma distribution warehouse

Deployment Location

Tongi

Completion Year

2025

Brands & Systems

bosch, hikvision

The challenge

Client Profile

A pharmaceutical distribution company — a regional distributor for four major Bangladesh pharmaceutical manufacturers — operating a large temperature-controlled warehouse in Tongi, Gazipur district, approximately 30 kilometres north of Dhaka city centre. The warehouse covers approximately 5,000 square metres on a single floor, with a temperature-controlled cold room (4-8°C) for biological products and vaccines, a standard ambient storage area for tablet and capsule products, and a separate hazardous chemicals storage room for pharmaceutical solvents and cleaning agents used in repackaging operations. The facility employs 85 staff across two shifts and handles approximately BDT 12 crore in pharmaceutical inventory on an average day.

The challenge

The Challenge

In the 12 months preceding this project, the warehouse experienced two after-hours break-in attempts. The first occurred on a Tuesday night: intruders cut through the perimeter fence on the western side of the warehouse compound and attempted to force entry through a loading dock emergency exit door. The attempt was unsuccessful — the door held — but the security guard on patrol discovered the fence cut and the damaged door latch at approximately 03:00. Police were called and a report filed, but no suspects were identified.

The second attempt, six weeks later, was more sophisticated. Intruders gained access to the compound through a different point (a loading dock gate where the lock mechanism had degraded) and were inside the compound for an estimated 20-30 minutes before triggering the warehouse's existing alarm — a conventional wired perimeter alarm that monitored only the main entry doors. The intruders fled without gaining entry to the warehouse building, but the time they spent in the compound before the alarm triggered confirmed that the existing alarm's detection coverage was wholly inadequate for the compound perimeter.

The combination of two incidents in quick succession prompted the warehouse's managing director to contact the distribution company's insurance broker — specifically, to review whether the existing security arrangements satisfied the insurance policy's security conditions. The broker's assessment was direct: the existing security system did not meet the policy's minimum security standards for a pharmaceutical facility with inventory above a defined value threshold. The broker specified three requirements: (1) a professional alarm monitoring service (Central Monitoring Station) with documented response protocol, (2) perimeter detection covering the full building envelope (not just main doors), and (3) video verification capability linked to alarm events. If these were not implemented within 90 days, the broker indicated the insurer would likely decline to renew the policy at its current terms — a commercial catastrophe for the business, since the inventory value made insurance non-negotiable.

Beyond the insurance requirement, the warehouse management recognized the genuine risk their inventory posed. Pharmaceutical products — particularly prescription medications and high-value biological products — have a ready secondary market through unregulated channels in Bangladesh. A successful break-in at the facility could result not only in BDT crore-level inventory losses but in stolen medications entering the uncontrolled secondary market, creating public health risks and potentially exposing the distributor to regulatory liability.

The cold room presented a specific vulnerability: it stored vaccines and biological products worth approximately BDT 2 crore at any given time. A break-in that interrupted cold room power or temperature control — even without physically removing products — could render the entire cold room inventory unsaleable, as the cold chain would be considered broken.

Why SSAL

The warehouse manager contacted four security systems integrators. SSAL was the only vendor to propose Ajax Systems as the alarm platform — a specification decision that the managing director came to understand was technically significant.

Ajax is a professional wireless alarm system — rather than the traditional wired systems that most competitors proposed. In a 5,000 square metre warehouse with a large compound, wired detection requires extensive cable runs to each detection point: around the perimeter, across the roof line, to each loading dock. Running wired cable through an operational warehouse requires cable tray installation, wall penetrations, and significant disruption to operations. The Ajax wireless system uses the Ajax radio protocol (operating at 866 MHz in the EU frequency band allocated for security systems in Bangladesh) with individual device-to-hub communication, eliminating the need for cable runs to each detector. Each Ajax device has an onboard battery life of 3-5 years, self-supervises its own radio link, and reports any signal interference or tampering attempt to the Ajax app and the CMS.

SSAL also proposed the video verification integration — Hikvision cameras at all alarm detection zones, linked to the Ajax system — which specifically addressed the insurance broker's third requirement. When an alarm is triggered, the CMS operator can immediately pull the camera feed for the alarmed zone to verify whether the alarm represents a genuine intrusion or a false positive. This verification step reduces false alarm dispatches and ensures that genuine intrusion alarms receive an immediate physical response without the 20-30 minute delay that typically occurs when CMS operators wait for a secondary confirmation before dispatching.

The solution

The SSAL Solution

SSAL designed and installed a 48-zone Ajax wireless intrusion alarm system with dual-path IP+GSM communication, Hikvision video verification integration, and professional CMS monitoring.

Ajax Hub 2 Plus — Central Controller: The Ajax Hub 2 Plus is the system's central controller, installed in a locked steel cabinet in the warehouse security room. The Hub 2 Plus connects to the CMS monitoring station via dual-path communication: primary path via the warehouse's internet (Ethernet), secondary path via a GSM SIM card. If the internet connection is disrupted (by an intruder cutting the internet line or a service outage), the alarm automatically fails over to GSM, ensuring the CMS receives all alarm events even if the wired network is compromised. The Hub 2 Plus monitors every connected Ajax device every 30 seconds — any device that fails to respond generates an automatic tamper alert.

Ajax Detection Devices — 48 Zones:

MotionCam Outdoor — 12 Units (Perimeter and Compound): Ajax MotionCam Outdoor PIR detectors with integrated cameras were installed at 12 positions around the warehouse perimeter wall and compound fence line. The MotionCam Outdoor detects motion via dual-technology PIR, then captures a visual verification image (not continuous video) at the moment of alarm — providing the CMS operator with an immediate visual of what triggered the alarm. Anti-masking protection detects attempts to spray paint or cover the detector lens.

MotionCam — 8 Units (Internal Zones): Ajax MotionCam (indoor) units were installed inside the warehouse in 8 internal zones: ambient storage aisles, cold room entry, hazardous chemicals room, and office areas. The same PIR + verification image capture as the outdoor units, with an indoor optimized detection angle (110° × 88°, range 12 metres).

DoorProtect — 16 Units (All Exterior Doors): Ajax DoorProtect magnetic contact detectors were installed on all exterior doors: 8 loading dock doors, 4 emergency exit doors, 2 personnel entrances, and 2 security room/office doors. Any door opening when the system is armed immediately triggers an alarm event identifying the specific door.

GlassBreak — 8 Units (All Windows): Ajax GlassBreak acoustic detectors — mounted on the ceiling above each window area — detect the characteristic acoustic signature of breaking glass. 8 units cover all 16 windows in the warehouse perimeter. The acoustic detection prevents forced entry via window breaking without contact with the window frame (which would not trigger a magnetic contact sensor).

MotionProtect Outdoor — 4 Units (Loading Dock Area, Anti-Masking): The loading dock area — identified in the second intrusion attempt as a compound access point — received 4 Ajax MotionProtect Outdoor microwave + PIR dual-technology detectors with anti-masking. Dual-technology detection means the detector must simultaneously trigger both the PIR sensor and the microwave sensor to generate an alarm — reducing false alarms from wind-driven objects or small animals while maintaining detection sensitivity to human-sized targets.

Hikvision Video Verification Integration:

16 Hikvision 4MP cameras (DS-2CD2143G2-I, with ColorVu for the loading dock area) were installed at all alarm detection zones. The cameras are connected via the warehouse LAN to a Hikvision NVR with 30-day retention. The Ajax Hub 2 Plus's relay output is connected to the NVR's alarm input, triggering automatic video pre-recording and post-recording (30 seconds before and 2 minutes after each alarm event) for the camera in the relevant zone. The CMS monitoring station receives the alarm notification via the Ajax monitoring protocol and can simultaneously access the Hikvision NVR's alarm event recording via remote viewing — providing video verification within 10-15 seconds of receiving the alarm notification.

Professional CMS Monitoring — Assured Security Bangladesh: SSAL arranged integration of the Ajax system with Assured Security Bangladesh's 24/7 professional Central Monitoring Station (CMS) — one of Bangladesh's licensed Class A CMS operators. The monitoring contract specifies a formal response protocol: alarm receipt within 45 seconds of event generation, video verification within 60 seconds of alarm receipt, decision to dispatch within 3 minutes of alarm receipt. Dispatch is via the CMS's contracted rapid response team (minimum 2 armed guards in a marked response vehicle). The warehouse management also receives an automatic SMS alert on all alarm events, allowing the managing director and warehouse manager to simultaneously receive alarm notifications regardless of the time of day.

Cold Room Temperature Monitoring Integration: The Ajax Hub 2 Plus's temperature sensor input was connected to the cold room's temperature monitoring probe, providing a secondary alarm if cold room temperature rises above 10°C (indicating cooling system failure or forced opening). This alert, sent to the CMS and to the warehouse manager's mobile, provides early warning of a cold chain integrity threat.

Implementation

The Ajax wireless system's installation was completed in 5 days — approximately 60% faster than a comparable wired system would have required. With no cable runs needed for the detection devices, installation consisted of mounting each device at its designated location, commissioning its connection to the Ajax Hub, and verifying detection coverage by physical walk-test. The Ajax app provides real-time commissioning feedback, showing signal strength for each device.

The Hikvision camera installation required additional cable work — Cat6 cable runs from each camera position to the central NVR — taking an additional 4 days. The SSAL team performed camera alignment and NVR integration simultaneously with final Ajax commissioning, achieving a complete integrated system ready for CMS registration in 9 working days total.

CMS registration required submission of the installed device schedule, facility plan, and authorized contact list to Assured Security Bangladesh's technical team for system configuration in their monitoring platform. Registration was completed within 2 days, and the system was handed over to the warehouse manager in a formal handover session covering the Ajax app, arming/disarming procedure, CMS contact protocol, and false alarm procedure (avoiding unnecessary CMS dispatch through the proper alarm cancellation code).

"Two break-in attempts in six weeks, and an insurance broker telling us that our policy might not be renewed unless we met their security requirements. That was the situation. SSAL solved all three of the broker's requirements in a single installation — the Ajax alarm system, the CMS monitoring, the video verification. The wireless approach meant the installation took days rather than weeks, with no disruption to our operations. We've had zero incidents since, the insurance is renewed at standard terms, and the cold chain monitoring gives us an additional layer of peace of mind for our highest-value inventory."

Managing DirectorPharmaceutical Distribution Company, Tongi

Outcome

Results & Impact

Zero break-in attempts have occurred since system installation. The insurance broker reviewed the system documentation — Ajax system certificate, CMS monitoring contract with response protocol, and Hikvision camera coverage map — and confirmed that all three requirements specified for policy compliance were satisfied. The insurance policy was renewed on standard terms without the previously threatened non-renewal.

The insurance broker's post-installation risk assessment categorized the warehouse's intrusion security as "enhanced" — a classification that qualifies the warehouse for an insurance premium reduction at renewal. The broker estimated the reduction at approximately 12% of the previous premium — a saving of approximately BDT 3.5 lakh per year.

The CMS monitoring contract has been active for 7 months. In that period, the CMS has received 4 alarm events — all identified as false alarms within 30 seconds of video verification, with no unnecessary dispatch. The managing director credits the video verification capability with preventing the false alarm dispatches that would otherwise have generated significant overtime costs and unnecessary police interactions.

The cold room temperature monitoring integration was tested during a planned maintenance event (cooling system shutdown for coil cleaning). The temperature alert triggered as designed at 09.8°C, notifying the warehouse manager and CMS simultaneously — a demonstration that the cold chain monitoring adds a safety layer beyond the intrusion protection.

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