One French town just north of Paris faced familiar key management challenges. Each person in their Municipal Technical Centre had to carry approximately forty physical keys. If a single key was lost or stolen, for even one door, all compromised cylinders had to be changed. To prevent unauthorized access, all the keys had to be replaced, too — at great expense. Key duplication costs were mounting.
“One lost key cost from €3,000 to €4,000 for changing cylinders and replacing the keys,” explains Fabrice Girard, Territorial Technician at the Villiers-le-Bel Municipal Technical Centre.
To fix their expensive lost key problem, Villiers-le-Bel city administrators chose to combine ABLOY’s mechanical PROTEC2 and CLIQ® electromechanical locking within the same flexible, key-based access control system. Almost 500 CLIQ® wireless cylinders, 850 programmable, battery-powered CLIQ® keys, plus programming devices and wireless CLIQ® padlocks, have been deployed in a multi-year, rolling upgrade programme.
Now, with CLIQ®, lost or stolen keys are cancelled instantly using the CLIQ® Web Manager software. The Web Manager works securely inside a standard browser, with no software installation needed. Administrators can program access rights for every CLIQ® key, padlock or cylinder using the Web Manager. They filter access to specific sites and doors according to the precise needs of every city employee.
“CLIQ® Web Manager is a very easy and pleasant system to use every day,” says Fabrice Girard.
Efficient workflows and rollout
CLIQ® also saves time for the city’s security team, because staff no longer must return to the Technical Centre to collect the keys for multiple sites. Authorized users carry a single, programmable, battery-powered CLIQ® key, where all their individually tailored access rights are stored.
“We wanted a wireless system with reduced maintenance costs and increased safety,” adds Fabrice Girard. “CLIQ® met all these requirements.”
The city has already rolled out CLIQ® beyond their Municipal Technical Centre to 10 local schools. Using the CLIQ® Web Manager, security staff can track exactly who has been granted access to every school site — critical for these sensitive premises and to improving overall school safety.
Plans are in place to equip Villiers-le-Bel’s 12 remaining schools with CLIQ® within 2 to 3 years, including canteens and boiler rooms. Because CLIQ® can be deployed and scaled flexibly, the city’s dedicated security budget funds this gradual extension of their CLIQ® system.
CLIQ® technology is secure, user-friendly and scalable across multiple sites — and already trusted in schools, colleges and universities all over Europe. To learn more about CLIQ® key access control, visit https://campaigns.assaabloyopeningsolutions.eu/cliq.
