Keys get copied, lost and kept by people who have left. Access control replaces them with something that can be cancelled in a minute, records who went through which door and when, and can be changed from a browser without a locksmith. We design and install access control for offices, clinics, hotels, industrial units and blocks of flats across Birmingham and the West Midlands, from a single door on a keypad to a networked system across a whole building.
What we do
- Door entry and intercoms: audio and video entry panels at the street door of offices, practices and flats, answered from a handset, a desk unit or a phone app.
- Readers and credentials: proximity fobs and cards, keypads, and mobile credentials for sites whose staff change often.
- Locking: maglocks, electric strikes and electric locks chosen for the door, the fire strategy and the traffic through it, with the push-to-exit, break-glass and fail-safe arrangements the escape route requires.
- Controllers and software: single-door, two-door and networked controllers administered from a browser, with door schedules, access groups, time zones and an event log.
- Integration: release on the fire alarm signal, a camera bookmark on a door event, setting and unsetting the intruder alarm from a reader, and vehicle barriers and gates on the same system.
- Automatic doors and barriers: the controls and the interfaces for automatic doors, turnstiles, car park barriers and gates.
Escape routes come first
Whatever an access control system does to keep people out, it must never keep people in. Every door on an escape route is specified so that it opens from the inside in one action without a credential, the lock fails safe when the power goes, and the system releases the doors the fire strategy says must release when the fire alarm operates. We read the fire risk assessment before we design, and we will say so if a request would put a door on the wrong side of the Fire Safety Order.
How the work runs
A visit to walk the doors with you: which ones need to be controlled, who needs to get through each one and when, what happens to visitors, deliveries and the cleaner. The quotation lists each door with its reader, lock and exit arrangement, the controller and the software, and the network the system will sit on. Installation uses our own structured cabling, so the data points, the power and the lock wiring arrive at the door in one visit. At handover we set up the first administrators, load the first credentials, test every door for entry, exit, fire release and power failure, and leave a short written guide to adding and removing people.
Standards and equipment
Systems are designed to BS EN 60839-11 for access control and to the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 for how they may be used on escape routes, with the electrical side to BS 7671. We specify controllers and readers to the size of the site and to how it is administered; we are not tied to one manufacturer. The event log is personal data under the UK GDPR, and we hand over the system with that in mind: named administrator accounts, and a note of what is recorded and for how long.
Often done with
CCTV, which shares the network and benefits from the door events, and the fire alarm, which the doors must answer to.