By Leila Rosenstråle, Manager ASSA ABLOY Future Lab

At the ASSA ABLOY Future Lab you provide input on future solutions via online concept tests. The information you give us is thoroughly analyzed and included in our product roadmap. In our new concept test we invite you to verify and provide further input to a new technology that we have been working on for some time in response to information that we received in previous studies.

Only about five percent of all doors in a typical workplace are electronically secured today. Industry studies report that security managers want to secure more locations, but the cost of installation is too high when looking at the available wired solutions currently on the market.  

A number of alternatives to a wired solution are available today. Most of these alternatives employ an offline approach where the information in the lock is updated with a portable device or the information is stored in – or transferred via the credential itself. This is a cost-effective solution, but the main drawbacks with these alternatives, compared to an online solution is evident: there is no way to instantly propagate changes or revoke access rights to all components of the system. It also requires more time and resources to manage.  

Calling for efficient solutions
Many of the current offline solutions are also sold as separate systems that require separate management software to update access rights and the issuing of a separate credential. This adds complexity, reducing the ability to get a clear overview of user rights and making it more difficult to analyze audit trails.

At ASSA ABLOY we take these issues seriously and are currently working on developing a wireless technology that is designed to satisfy the demand for a way to cost-efficiently expand and upgrade doors in existing access control systems. We want to offer a solution that will make it possible to deploy wireless access control without having to replace current systems or add additional parallel systems. Our solution will allow security managers to increase security on their premises without having to modify doors or change access control systems and user credentials.  

You decide
In our new concept test at the ASSA ABLOY Future Lab, we want to get your opinion on our proposed solution before it becomes commercially available. We would like to see what (if any) additional features you would like to see in this type of solution that would further increase convenience and security in your current solution. We would also like to find out more about your current solution, in order to adapt our proposal to be seamlessly integrated into your system.  

Take the opportunity to share your views in this new ASSA ABLOY Future Lab concept test! Invitations and instructions are being sent to selected ASSA ABLOY Future Lab members.  

The Web-based survey will take about 25 minutes to complete. It is possible to do part of it and complete the rest later on. If you would like to participate, but have not received an invitation, please send an email to info@assaabloyfuturelab.com.