The Story
Consolidating four production lines onto one site meant more than putting everyone under one roof. It meant keeping competing vehicle programs apart, protecting unreleased R&D, and running the whole campus from one centralized view.
One campus, four independent production lines
"We had several sites scattered across Victoria and the idea was to build one super site to consolidate four production lines under one roof and get everybody together," said Lee Webster, Head of IT at Walkinshaw Group.
The new 106,000-square-metre campus houses multiple vehicle programs running side by side for several automotive brands, plus a 140-plus person engineering and R&D team developing unreleased vehicle programs and protecting proprietary IP. Walkinshaw needed centralized oversight across the whole site, with strict separation between competing programs and production lines that couldn't be allowed to cross paths.
Each of the four production lines runs on its own independent security, CCTV, access control and network, while Protege GX keeps all of it unified under one centralized view. "Each line is configured independently," Webster said. "It's got its own security, CCTV, access control and network, so it can operate independently while still being under the same roof."
A proven platform, scaled up
Walkinshaw turned to Metro Group, a technology partner that has supported the business for nearly 25 years, growing alongside it from around 100 employees to more than 1,200. Metro Group was brought in at the concept stage, well before construction began, and handled the fibre, Wi-Fi, data network, security and CCTV design, plus integration and commissioning from start to finish.
Metro Group built the security foundation around ICT's Protege GX platform, deploying 116 access-controlled doors across 11 controllers, integrated with approximately 145 CCTV cameras through NX Witness, mobile credentials and 24/7 guardhouse monitoring. The same compartmentalized approach locks down the engineering and R&D areas, where access requires approval and sign-off before anyone can enter.
Walkinshaw had already run ICT solutions across its other sites for more than a decade, so extending Protege GX to a campus two to three times larger wasn't a gamble. "It had already proven itself at our other sites, so it was a logical move for us," Webster said.
