9 Essential Features of a Visitor Management System for Enhanced Workplace Security

In today's dynamic manufacturing landscape, ensuring the security of your facilities is paramount. A robust visitor management system (VMS) can play a vital role in safeguarding your workers, machines, equipment, intellectual property, and products. Whether you're a pharmaceutical enterprise, construction organization, or consumer goods company, investing in a secure VMS is a crucial step towards growing your business.

How a Visitor Management System Improves Building Security

A VMS offers several benefits when it comes to securing your manufacturing facilities:

1. Integration with Building Security: A VMS can seamlessly integrate with other aspects of your building security, such as access control systems, providing a comprehensive protective layer across all your sites.

2. Real-time Alerts and Notifications: With a VMS, employee registration, visitor screening, and security alerts happen instantly and discreetly in the background. This helps you maintain a welcoming atmosphere for visitors while ensuring a strong sense of security.

3. Comprehensive Record Keeping: A VMS provides a clear picture of the comings and goings across all your locations, including who's onsite, when, and how often. This data can help you make informed decisions about security staffing and resource allocation.

4. Scalability: As your manufacturing business grows, a VMS can scale alongside it, allowing you to add new locations and roll out security processes at new facilities with ease.

9 Key Security Features of a Visitor Management System

To understand how a VMS works, let's explore nine essential features that can help you enhance your security:

1. Visitor Screening

A VMS enables you to screen visitors before they arrive, including ID scanning, watchlist checks, and setting criteria such as proof of vaccination. If a visitor doesn't comply with your criteria, the system will automatically notify you.

2. Instant Alerts

Security alerts happen instantly and in the background with a VMS. If an unauthorized person attempts to enter your facility, the system will identify the threat and alert hosts and security personnel immediately.

3. Blocklists

With a VMS, you can add people to a blocklist to prevent them from entering any of your locations. The system will notify the appropriate parties, including security staff and designated hosts.

4. Badge Printing

Customizable visitor badges help your security staff quickly identify and confirm that visitors are welcome. You can assign different badge colors or designs for various visitor types, such as contractors or auditors.

5. Access Control

By integrating your VMS with your access control system, you can use QR codes, facial recognition, or touch ID to allow visitors access to specific areas onsite. This feature is particularly important for manufacturing facilities to ensure the right people have access to the appropriate areas.

6. ID Scanning

Your VMS acts as an extension of your security staff, scanning IDs ahead of time or upon arrival. The system integrates with your existing blocklist and can connect with background check software for added security.

7. NDA and Document Signing

A VMS securely sends and stores digital documents, such as NDAs or contracts, that visitors need to sign before arriving, eliminating the need for paper-based processes.

8. Integrations

Integrations are a crucial feature of your VMS, connecting seamlessly with your existing tech to enhance security. Examples include credential checks, emergency response, secure WiFi, and background checks.

9. Analytics

Your VMS offers real-time analytics across all your locations and devices, enabling you to identify important visitor trends, such as who visits, when they arrive and leave, and how often they come and go. These insights can help you make data-driven decisions about physical occupancy and security staffing in each of your facilities.

Conclusion

Regardless of your industry, a visitor management system should be a staple of your workplace security setup. By acting as a necessary barrier, a VMS protects your people, facilities, and business, ensuring compliance with global regulations.

If you're interested in how a visitor management system can help secure your facilities in 2023, consider exploring WOX Visitors. With its comprehensive features and scalability, WOX Visitors can be a valuable addition to your security infrastructure, providing peace of mind as you focus on growing your manufacturing business.