Family Owned Chain of Pharmacies Keep An "Eye on Their Stores" Using the ELAN g! Control System

The Lomax family is no stranger to running a successful business. Founded in 1973, the family’s pharmacy business is experiencing rapid growth and now includes five northeastern Arkansas pharmacies. In 2009, their then newest pharmacy suffered, in a two-month period, two break-in attempts and several false alarms from the store’s security system. And every time an incident occurred someone had to get up, even at 2 a.m., and drive 50 miles to reset the alarm and survey the situation. The family realized this was an extremely inefficient and inconvenient way to manage security for multiple stores, so they went in search of a solution, and found it – the ELAN g! Control System.

The Lomax’s introduction to the ELAN g! Control System occurred in the fall of 2010 when they were getting ready to open their newest of five pharmacies. They met with Ryan Heringer, President of Jonesboro, Arkansas-based Sound Concepts, who suggested and installed the ELAN g! Control System to give them remote control over the store’s surveillance cameras, security system, heating, air conditioning and lighting.

“I knew the ELAN g! Control System was what they needed for the pharmacy,” said Heringer. “And once they saw how simple it is to control their whole store from the iPhone app, they knew it too. Now they can monitor surveillance cameras and the alarm system from home, and also control lighting, heating, audio and video, so it was the perfect solution.”

Now, instead of waking up to drive 50 miles when an alarm is triggered, Kyle Lomax can open the g!Mobile app on his iPhone and instantly view the live surveillance cameras, and turn off or reset the alarm. “On Saturday we close at noon, and one Saturday I got a call from our alarm company at 2 p.m. that the alarm tripped, and they asked if they should dispatch the police,” said Lomax. “I said yes, and then immediately logged in to the g! iPhone app to view the surveillance system. Before the police even got there I knew it was a false alarm. If I didn’t have the g!Mobile app, I would have had to go all the way back to the store right after I got home.”

The Lomax’s know that pharmacies are a potential target for criminal activity, so security and surveillance are very important to them. “We’ve had people try to come in through the drive-thru window before, so now we have a camera right above the window,” said Lomax. “There’s another one outside the front door and the back door, and seven more inside the store. We can’t see the whole interior from the register area, so having all the camera feeds on one screen right on the counter is important for the safety of our employees and our store. And we can adjust everything from any computer in the pharmacy.”

To reduce their energy costs, they programmed the system to automatically turn on and off the lights, heating and air conditioning at specific times every day. The system also includes three zones of audio with ELAN Elios speakers and a 37-inch HDTV in the waiting area that displays the pharmacy’s internal marketing messages and cable news programs.

The Lomax’s are now installing the ELAN g! Control System in all five of their pharmacies, as well as any new locations that they open. “As our business grows, we will increasingly rely on the remote-monitoring system to ensure our stores run smoothly and to handle any incidents,” said Lomax.

The ELAN g! Series Control System provides users with the most uniform and intuitive icon-based control from their favorite devices, including TVs, touch screens, touch pads, PCs, iPhones, and iPads. The standardized interface works across platforms, so that the trendy g!Mobile app users love on the iPhone appears and works similarly on ELAN touch screens, valets and handheld remotes as well as users' TVs and mobile devices. And the system's IP backbone makes it just as easy to control the system from across the room as across the globe.