Eufinger Germany Security

RELIABLY SECURE: EUFINGER HAS EQUIPPED ITS EMPLOYEES WITH ROBUST SONIM XP1301 CORE NFC MOBILE PHONES.

The Company
Walter Eufinger founded Bewachungsinstitut Eufinger in Frankfurt in 1971, and then changed it into a limited-liability company in 1975. Today it employs about 1000 people and provides a wide range of classic guard, protection, and other security services. It mainly concentrates on protecting property and providing guard and reception services, also for conventions and other types of events.

Bewachungsinstitut Eufinger works for prominent clients that include several major banks and public customer. The company also carries out inspections in public transport. Staff assigned to protect property and conduct inspections often have to work under harsh, very demanding conditions, so their mobile phones need to be especially robust and reliable.

The Challenge
Bernd Weiss, Eufinger’s technical manager, says “Mobile phones are very important for our employees. They ensure they are able to communicate, and are also indispensable for planning and documenting missions. It’s essential for them to be reliable and robust.”

For example, it is critical for the devices to continue working perfectly after being dropped on the ground, something that can easily occur when grappling with a trespasser or offender. “It’s mainly about making sure that our staff can continue using their phones to talk and send and receive data, no matter what happens,” says Weiss. “We had also been searching for phones that we wouldn’t have to replace after just a few months of use because of broken housings or scratched displays, or because they stop working properly as a result of defects or damage.”

The Solution
Eufinger therefore equipped his staff with the Sonim XP1301 Core NFC. This rugged mobile phone meets all of the company’s requirements with regard to robustness and reliability. Its features also make it ideal for uses above and beyond standard communication. The XP1301 Core enables the company to keep track of its people – this helps protect them when they are on dangerous missions, in addition to facilitating planning and logistics.

“We need to know where our employees are at all times, for instance in order to quickly send the nearest to where they are needed,” explains Weiss.

“Mobile Phones From Other Manufacturers Simply Didn’t Give Us The Reliability And Data Transmission Capabilities We Needed. Our New Sonim Phones Have Completely Put An End To These Problems.”

The NFC chip integrated in the XPand™ module included with the Sonim XP1301 Core NFC is also very important to Eufinger. This acronym stands for “near field communications”, a function that makes it possible to read digital labels – called NFC tags – and load information stored in them into the phone.

Gerd Allmendinger, the managing director of the software company SoftClean GmbH, explains the benefits: “Eufinger’s employees are now using a guard monitoring system that we developed. It is a Java-based application that runs on the robust Sonim XP1301 Core NFC. NFC tags are glued or otherwise attached to defined checkpoints in the buildings and facilities they guard.” By using NFC to scan these objects, a guard proves that he has visited each checkpoint at the contractually stipulated time. “The app’s functionality goes even further. If required, status information can be selected from a list to associate with each checkpoint.

For example, a guard can make a note that certain doors and windows are shut, a photocopier is powered down, or the light is turned off. It is also possible to type in additional remarks.” The data are immediately transferred to the server at the base using GSM EDGE wireless data. As a result, Eufinger’s dispatchers have up-to-the-minute status information on the guarded facilities at their fingertips – instead of having to wait until staff return.

The Benefits
Eufinger had tested and even used mobile phones from other manufactures, but according to Bernd Weiss their data transmission capabilities were “on the whole inadequate. But we were able to completely solve this problem with the new Sonim devices.” In addition to being mechanically robust, the Sonim phones boast reliable reception.

“This phone’s robust design gives us clear logistical and cost benefits,” the technical manager sums up. “The other devices we obtained from major vendors of standard mobile phones rarely survived more than two or three months of constant use.”

“Since Switching To The Sonim, We Have Hardly Had To Replace Any Of The Phones. You Can Imagine How This Has Improved Our Total Cost Of Ownership And The Efficiency Of Our Processes.”