South Yorkshire Police Find a SMART Way
To Improve Daily Briefings
The Challenge
There has been growing proficiency in intelligence handling since the advent of the National Intelligence Model.
The objective for every Police force throughout the UK is to streamline the time spent on daily briefings and
ensure that the quality is such that officers are tasked with intelligence driven tasks, thus optimising their
effectiveness.
Barnsley Police Station Intelligence Office
With the constant pressure on the force to improve efficiency during briefings and debriefs, Barnsley Police
District looked for ubiquitous audiovisual hardware and software applications that could support their existing
applications and tasks.
The Solution
In South Yorkshire, Keith Lumley, Police Superintendent Barnsley District, became aware of large display
collaborative technologies and in particular, the power of the market leading SMART Board interactive
whiteboards about two years ago. Partnering with SMART, Matrix Display Systems devised a solution that
offered the best value and demonstrated how the interactive whiteboard could deliver a vastly improved level of
efficiency to the daily briefings by allowing users to link information, maps and photos in a simple and
uncluttered way. During the initial presentation Superintendent Lumley recognised the value of being able to
interact with this briefing data. “The fact that the whiteboards enable the efficient sharing of information and
ideas from the Police teams, another HMIC directive, is ideal”, explains Superintendent Lumley. He adds, “The
best briefs are interactive briefs!”
Superintendent Lumley had considered the use of plasma screens in the briefing rooms but once he had
researched SMART, he realised that this hardware and software solution was much more versatile and useful for
their requirements. Following the in itial installation, Matrix has introduced SMART boards into all briefing rooms
across eight sites in the area. This investment has been supported by funding from the National Criminal
Intelligence Systems (NCIS) who agree that collaborative technology enables Police Forces to manage more
effective briefings on areas such as; how serious and organised criminals operate and specifically the planning
and execution of policing for major foot-balling events. As Superintendent Lumley explains “We can display a
crime picture of an individual for example, build up the profile with the team, and cut and paste it into a format
suitable for publishing. This saves us considerable time and improves the quality of briefings and intelligence
documents compared with previous practices.
We now use the SMART Boards to draw together all relevant information that we hold, to drill down and discuss
where the greatest demands for our resources lie. We can pull in additional data and information that we hold in
software applications. This encompasses information in both the applications that everyone is familiar with like
Word and Excel, and we also use the SMART Notebook software that comes with the whiteboard. The Notebook
software is excellent for working on critical incidents as the number of pages being used can be extended and
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Matrix Head Office: Unit 12 Egham Business Village, Crabtree Rd, Egham, Surrey, TW20 8RB. Tel: 01784 439000 Fax: 01784 439090 Email: info@matrixdisplay.com
Matrix City Office: 32A Liverpool Street, London, EC2M 7PP. Tel: 0207 469 4900 Fax: 0207 469 4909 Email: info@matrixdisplay.com
Matrix Midlands Office: Studio 308B The Big Peg, 120 Vyse Street, Birmingham, B18 6MF. Tel: 0121 244 4040 Fax: 0121 244 5050 Email: info@matrixdisplay.com
South Yorkshire Police Find a SMART Way
To Improve Daily Briefings
pages can be viewed and moved around as additional information becomes available. We can also drop in any
additional resources that we require into Notebook – for example maps”.
The fact that all briefing information is time and date stamped has also added a new level of efficiency to the
quality assurance process providing an audit trail and traceability for briefings, incidents and investigative
purposes.
Barnsley Police use Mapping applications and map templates on the SMART Board to track movements and
resources. In turn they work with these to interact with the systems for the forces command and control
application. They project these applications onto the whiteboard and then interact with the incident’s
progression. This has been found to be particularly effective in incidents involving large crowds such as football
matches and most recently firearms incidents and the aftermath of a large explosion.
Barnsley Police Station Conference Room
“Without a doubt in my mind I would say that the use of SMART Boards has bought a new level of efficiency and
high quality to our daily briefings, in the way we share and present vital information. All duty groups now use
the equipment in all our briefing rooms at all times” Superintendent Lumley explains.
When asked about how easy the whiteboard is to use he responds, “We had excellent support from Matrix
Display systems. Very little training was therefore all that was needed to get us up and running using the SMART
Board interactive whiteboards to maximum affect, but to be honest anyone who is familiar with a computer is
not going to have any issue using a SMART Board effectively. In fact some colleagues have commented that it is
actually easier than using a computer because the interactivity of the board and being able to use a stylus or
finger on the board gives you a much finer point of interaction with applications and with graphics than using a
mouse stroke”.
South Yorkshire Police Force is only starting to see the possible uses for the boards and they plan to develop
their use further. “This is not a piece of equipment that we have invested in that now sits under a duster in the
corner of the room. It is integral to our jobs! We now use SMART Boards for a wide range of parts of our jobs
including training, brainstorming ideas, recording actions and resolving problems and incidents. It is so much
easier than using paper or getting a team to look over the shoulder of one person on the computer”.
Superintendent Lumley concedes “With regards to the SMART Board I would ultimately say that I would not be
without it now.” He continues, “It has also had the same impact on anyone else who uses it. One thing that we
notice is that when staff from other divisions see the boards in action they immediately recognise the
implications for their own jobs and want to use interactive whiteboards in their roles. The same can also be said
of colleagues from other forces and agencies who are extremely impressed by the SMART Boards’ capabilities”.
As more and more forces move towards the use of SMART Boards the quality of briefings is steadily rising.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Matrix Head Office: Unit 12 Egham Business Village, Crabtree Rd, Egham, Surrey, TW20 8RB. Tel: 01784 439000 Fax: 01784 439090 Email: info@matrixdisplay.com
Matrix City Office: 32A Liverpool Street, London, EC2M 7PP. Tel: 0207 469 4900 Fax: 0207 469 4909 Email: info@matrixdisplay.com
Matrix Midlands Office: Studio 308B The Big Peg, 120 Vyse Street, Birmingham, B18 6MF. Tel: 0121 244 4040 Fax: 0121 244 5050 Email: info@matrixdisplay.com
South Yorkshire Police Find a SMART Way
To Improve Daily Briefings
Business Benefits
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Streamlined delivery of briefings with additional visual impact
Time and date audit trail within SMART software for debriefings, incidents and investigative purposes
Improved efficiency and time savings through use of SMART interactive whiteboard technologies
Reliability of new Matrix system and staff confidence in its use
Increased use and competency on Smart products via the Matrix training and software
Clearly defined software and hardware upgrade and training schedule through Matrix ensuring
standardisation of systems and processes
Matrix understanding of police applications and close working relationship with suppliers to develop the
software
About Matrix Display Systems Public Sector Division
Matrix is an established supplier of specialist audiovisual solutions to the majority of UK Police forces including:
The Metropolitan Police, West Midlands, West Mercia, Nottinghamshire, Northamptonshire, Leicestershire, South
Yorkshire, West Yorkshire, Greater Manchester, the NCS, and Centrex/NSLEC-Wyboston. Matrix has dedicated
Account Managers able to provide consultancy, support and preferential pricing supported by our partner
manufacturers to ensure the most suitable solution is provided at the most competitive pricing.
Matrix has supplied and installed equipment for many Police applications including:
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Briefing rooms
Force IT training centres (bespoke software training)
Public order & Firearms training
Force control rooms (24/7 Applications)
Operations and deployment units
Conference rooms
Helicopter downlink displays
Video & Data conferencing
For more information on these solutions please contact Matrix Public Sector Account Manager Ian Wallington by
telephone 0121 244 4040 or email ian@matrixdisplay.com
About SMART
SMART Technologies Inc. is both the industry pioneer and global market leader in versatile, easy-to-use
interactive whiteboards and other group collaboration tools. SMART products include the family of awardwinning SMART Board interactive whiteboards, as well as multimedia furniture, whiteboard cameras and
software. Using SMART products, groups can access and share the information they need to meet, teach, train
and present. SMART customers include NASA, Texas Instruments, BMW, Fujitsu, Thomas Telford, and Royal
National College for the Blind. SMART is a private company founded in 1987. Employing over 380 people,
SMART is headquartered in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, with assembly facilities in Ottawa and Calgary, and offices
in Bonn, Tokyo, New York City and Washington, DC. In 1992 SMART formed a strategic alliance with Intel®
Corporation that resulted in joint product development and marketing efforts, and Intel’s equity ownership in
SMART. SMART products are sold through dealers across North America and through distributors worldwide.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Matrix Head Office: Unit 12 Egham Business Village, Crabtree Rd, Egham, Surrey, TW20 8RB. Tel: 01784 439000 Fax: 01784 439090 Email: info@matrixdisplay.com
Matrix City Office: 32A Liverpool Street, London, EC2M 7PP. Tel: 0207 469 4900 Fax: 0207 469 4909 Email: info@matrixdisplay.com
Matrix Midlands Office: Studio 308B The Big Peg, 120 Vyse Street, Birmingham, B18 6MF. Tel: 0121 244 4040 Fax: 0121 244 5050 Email: info@matrixdisplay.com