ASSA ABLOY Hospitality provides secure locking for workplace housing and modular facilities Canadian Design and Construction Report special feature Beginning with a simple idea to provide more secure hotel access, ASSA ABLOY Hospitality has become a lead- ing global provider of advanced locking and access solu- tions. The company’s story began in 1974 when lockmaker Tor Sørnes heard reports about his favorite American singer being attacked by an intruder who broke into her hotel room. The incident inspired him to invent the world’s first recordable door lock, VingCard's original concept. The company quickly became the global leader in hospitality industry guestroom security. Around the same time, Bjørn Lyng, invented and intro- duced the world’s first electronic in-room safe to the hotel and lodging market. The two companies joined forces in 1994 to form Vingcard Elsafe (now known as ASSA ABLOY Hospitality). Today the company continues to leverage the most ad- vanced technologies to offer security and peace of mind to all types of lodging providers and their guests/residents in a variety of industries, including workforce housing and modular facilities. “This extensive expertise has made us the world’s lead- ing provider of advanced locking and access solutions, in- cluding innovative technologies such as Mobile Access, RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) electronic locking systems with compatible software, energy management solutions and more,” says Tim Shea, president of ASSA ABLOY Hospitality. Shea says managing the inflow and outflow of both temporary and permanent staff in modular housing/work camps presents many security issues that must be prop- erly managed. “Traditional mechanical keys are no longer a solution, because they are simply unmanageable. In ad- dition to not providing any real security, they offer no trace- ability of who has been where and when, it is impossible to track copies of keys that might have been made, and cylinders must often be replaced,” he said. “With all of these factors combined, mechanical keys are simply not the solution when locking systems have to manage thousands of cabins and thousands of employees coming in and out during both the construction and the management of the sites.” ASSA ABLOY’s advanced RFID (Radio Frequency Iden- tification) technology brings substantial benefits to site management and maintenance, in part because it can also write back information on each staff and personnel RFID keycard. Therefore, it is possible to read out the events from each user keycard and obtain a detailed activity track- ing of each staff and personnel. Additionally online installations can retrieve, reprogram and change electronic lock settings, avoiding having to travel to each and every lock to change the site's access parameters. ASSA ABLOY's innovative solutions are continuously setting new standards in the industry with proven, reliable technology and user-friendly features, as well as a “future- proof” modular design that is simple and affordable to up- grade to the latest RFID reader technology. Product benefits include: A simple upgrade process re- quiring minimal installation time and impact on employees; security features including remote room status, intruder alarms, remote card cancellation; streamlined mainte- nance with remote battery status reporting and remote maintenance alarms; and reducing energy consumption within rooms by up to 40 per cent with a retrofit of an Orion energy management system. ASSA ABLOY also provides onsite training and local sup- port. “Our company has evolved over the years, but who we are remains the same,” says Shea. “Our purpose is not simply to lock and unlock more doors-it is to unlock the feeling of safety, security and belonging for more people, wherever they go.” For more information, visit www.assaabloy.com. The Canadian Design and Construction Report — July-August 2015 – 37