Industry: Domestic Food Manufacturing, Warehousing and Distribution
Platform: Brivo Security Suite — Cloud Access Control, Video Surveillance and Burglar Alarm
Scope: 2 facilities in New Jersey, fully upgraded during a two-week holiday shutdown
Relationship: Over 20 years as an Alen Security client
Upgrade Lead: Alen Security Client Success Manager
A New Jersey-based domestic food manufacturer committed to excellence and innovation across its entire operation. The company manufactures warehouses and distributes its products from two facilities located near each other in New Jersey. With a workforce that depends on secure, reliable facility access around the clock, and operations that carry the compliance and safety expectations of the food manufacturing industry, physical security is not a background concern. It is a core operational requirement.
Alen Security has served this client for over 10 years, building a relationship grounded in trust, institutional knowledge of their facilities, and a shared commitment to keeping their people and assets protected.
The client’s existing Access Control, Video Surveillance, and Burglar Alarm systems were aging on-premise technologies. Each system operated independently, managed through separate interfaces, with no centralized visibility and no ability to take action remotely. As the systems aged, the limitations became increasingly difficult to work around.
On-premise access control systems carry cybersecurity risks that grow more serious over time. Legacy hardware and software rarely receive the regular firmware updates needed to address newly discovered vulnerabilities. Without a cloud-native platform, there is no mechanism for automatic security updates, no centralized audit trail, and no ability for administrators to respond to access events without being physically present or on-site. For a food manufacturer operating under strict safety and compliance standards, that exposure was no longer acceptable.
Operationally, the client was also dealing with a persistent behavioral challenge. Employees were routinely leaving doors and overhead bay doors open for extended periods, creating security gaps, climate control issues, and safety exposure that no amount of policy enforcement had resolved.
During a two-week holiday shutdown, a maintenance employee arrived at the facility to perform scheduled work. His access card was bent and would not read on any door. Unable to enter the building, he called the Plant Manager — who was an hour away from the facility.
With no way to remotely grant access, the Plant Manager had no choice but to drive in. Rather than require the round trip, the company paid the employee for his time and sent him home. A bent card cost a full day of maintenance work, a wasted trip, and unnecessary expense.
Under the Brivo Security Suite, this scenario resolves in seconds. The Plant Manager opens the app on his phone, sees the employee at the door, and unlocks it remotely. The employee gets in. The work gets done. Nobody drives anywhere.
Alen Security’s Client Success Manager identified the upgrade opportunity during an account review and coordinated the full project scope across both New Jersey facilities. The upgrade was executed during the client’s two-week holiday shutdown, minimizing disruption to operations and delivering a fully modernized security infrastructure before the facility reopened.
The Brivo Security Suite was deployed across both locations, unifying Access Control, Video Surveillance, and Burglar Alarm under a single cloud-based platform. All three systems now operate under the same interface, giving the Plant Manager and authorized administrators complete visibility and control across both facilities from any device, anywhere.
Brivo’s cloud-native architecture delivers automatic security updates in real time, eliminating the firmware maintenance burden that on-premise systems place on internal teams. Every access event is logged, timestamped, and auditable without any manual record management. Credentials are issued and revoked instantly from the app, removing the operational fragility of physical card management.
To address the persistent door and bay door behavior, Alen Security installed Door Prop Alarms at all doors and overhead bay entries across both facilities. When a door is held open beyond an acceptable threshold, an alert is triggered immediately, prompting employees to close the door rather than leaving it open indefinitely. The result was a behavioral shift that policy alone had never produced.
The migration from on-premise to Brivo cloud was not simply a technology upgrade. It was a structural improvement in how the client manages security risk.
Legacy on-premise systems require manual intervention at every level: firmware updates executed location by location, credential management tied to physical hardware, video footage stored on local servers with no remote retrieval, and alarm monitoring that requires on-site presence to investigate. Each of those dependencies is a point of failure, and each becomes more expensive and more risky as the system ages.
The Brivo Security Suite eliminates those dependencies entirely. One platform. One interface. Two facilities. Managed from anywhere, updated automatically, and built to scale as the client’s operation grows.
Remote Access: Previously no remote capability. Now the Plant Manager can unlock any door, view any camera, and manage any alarm from a phone or tablet from anywhere.
Credential Management: Previously tied to physical cards with no remote issuance or revocation. Now credentials are managed instantly via app, with immediate effect at both facilities.
Cybersecurity: Previously dependent on manual firmware updates rarely executed on schedule. Now automatic real-time updates keep every device current without any internal action required.
System Visibility: Previously three separate systems with three separate interfaces. Now Access Control, Video Surveillance, and Burglar Alarm operate under a single pane of glass.
Door Discipline: Previously reliant on policy with no enforcement mechanism. Now Door Prop Alarms trigger immediately when doors or overhead bays are left open, driving consistent behavior across both facilities.
Scalability: The Brivo platform scales as the client grows. Adding a location, a door, or a user requires no new infrastructure investment and no on-site technician visit.
The client now operates both New Jersey facilities on a unified, cloud-based security platform that gives their leadership team visibility and control they never had under the legacy system. The Plant Manager can respond to any access request, security event, or alarm condition from anywhere without leaving home. Employees are closing doors. Systems are current. Records are complete.
The upgrade was delivered on schedule, within the holiday shutdown window, with no operational disruption. It was made possible by a Client Success Manager who knew the client’s operation well enough to identify the right moment, the right solution, and the right path to get it done.
Twenty years of relationship. One upgrade that brought everything forward.
