How electronic key cabinets can help different industries?

Physical assets and facility security are of prime importance to every industry. Usually, this is achieved by locking them using simple physical keys. Today many big organizations even prefer to use digital access controls for this. Still, physical keys exist as a backup. This is because of their low cost and non-hackable nature. But these keys also need to be securely stored and properly managed to avoid thefts and ensure efficiency.

It has been seen in the past that improperly managed assets resulted in serious consequences. An investigation of 100+ law enforcement showed that at least 1,781 guns were either reported to be stolen or lost between 2008 and 2017. Similarly, in 2013, Massachusetts General Hospital reported to DEA that two of its nurses stole nearly 16,000 oxycodone pills (prescription medications). Situations like these can occur in any industry and can even cost huge amounts to organizations.

Apart from imposing strict rules and regulations throughout your organization, benefits of modern key control systems should be exploited. These systems have many advantages like authorized key access, audit trail, and remote key authentication. Both your keys and thus assets become more secure and workflow optimizes. Following is a list of how different industries can benefit from electronic key cabinets.

Police stations and correctional facilities deal with highly dangerous weapons daily. Therefore it becomes especially important for them to store and keep a track of all the weapons in use. Uneven storage is never an option since it can result in deadly weapons getting into the hands of criminals.

Still, it was found that many weapons were lost just because of the officers’ negligence. According to the FBI’s National Crime Information Center, at least 249,501 weapons were reported stolen or lost in 2016, up more than 62 percent from 2007. During those 10 years, at least 1.9 million weapons were lost or stolen. In many instances, these were then found to be used in crimes like killing.

This shows that a proper key management solution is needed in the high-security sector. An electronic key cabinet can help here. This intelligent key management system has many features. These ensure that keys to weapon lockers are always securely stored and only accessible by authorized individuals. The key cabinet’s software sends a push message and an email to the senior officer if a key to the weapon locker is not returned after an operation. As a result, the cabinet can assist reduce the risk of weapon loss. Seniors can query the concerned officer straight away.

In hospitals, care services, and in-house pharmacies, all kinds of medical supplies and equipment are stored using physical keys. Emergencies can arise anytime in healthcare. Hence unnecessary time cannot be wasted in retrieving required keys from a bunch of keys. Drug theft is another issue that the healthcare sector deals with. Many hospitals in the USA reported missing controlled drugs over the past few years. Only between 2011 to 2013, did the Italian hospital pharmacies (HPs) state that thefts of medicines caused a total loss of more than 18 million euros.

Electronic key management systems can help companies avoid such scenarios. It forces all the keys to be stored in an organized manner from start and protect them from unauthorized individuals. With inbuilt intuitive control panels, all the supplies can be accessed at a moment’s notice. The audit trail can even ensure daily that there is no discrepancy in storage volume.

Working in automotive dealerships and manufacturers entails dealing with hundreds of similar vehicle keys. Confusion and inefficiency are possible with options such as display, new, rental, and service vehicles. Sometimes a salesperson’s image is also ruined by the disorderly storage of such a crucial item as a vehicle key.

Electronic key management systems offer software integration capabilities that allow each salesperson to avoid repetitive tasks. Retrieving the right vehicle key instantly becomes possible. The exact location of the automobile in the parking lot can also be viewed in the system’s display. Besides you can be ready for any future demands. Thanks to the easy extendibility and combination possibilities with electronic lockers and terminals, it is possible. 

Service providers frequently deal with huge numbers of people and employees. For example, according to U.S. Census Bureau, about 50% of Americans bought lottery tickets in 2017. These kinds of applications also come by post. Managing and sending thousands of posts to the correct person in the correct department then becomes difficult. Moreover when an organization has a vehicle fleet, providing the correct key before every trip is often an undesired management task.

When keys are controlled electronically, however, the proper lockers for storing mail for a certain department can be quickly recognized. Identifying suitable cars also becomes a piece of cake. Depending on the distance to travel and remaining gasoline, the cabinet’s responsive display suggests the right car.

For transportation and logistics management, manually regulating and tracking the many critical key movements may be a nightmare. Electronic key control systems ensure that everything is digital, with all sign-ins and sign-outs registered. It allows everything to be controlled and tracked from a single place, either through a web or mobile application. This enhances an organization’s efficiency and work structure.

Besides studies have found that 12% of truck drivers’ drug and alcohol tests come back positive. This is a serious issue. It endangers the life of employees and the general public. Electronic key cabinets can help overcome this problem. You may incorporate alcohol level and driver’s license checks before issuing a vehicle key. This way only when the driver will be permissible to drive the vehicle by law, the key will be issued.

The sheer size of such organizations makes it difficult for their management to issue the right key to their staff. Traditional key management struggles to satisfy requirements like acting fast in the event of an anomaly. Processes like these can be automated with an electronic key management system.

With these systems, every key movement and the person issuing it can be recognized. Thanks to individual access rights with automated log file creation capability, nothing goes unnoticed. Plus with alarm relays, you can be confident that if there will be any suspicious behavior then precautionary steps will be taken. This includes immediately locking the key cabinet room or sending push notifications.

When organizations plan to expand, they already deal with many complexities. Avoiding key management problems will ease their work to some extent. Universities, sports centers, and tourism sectors daily deal with many people. Certain facility items and areas like laboratories or basketball courts should only be accessible by a specific group of people. Who accessed what and which section also needs to be tracked to ensure accountability. So when these facilities plan to expand, these tasks become even more difficult to accomplish.

Electronic key cabinets can help management overcome all these challenges. Post an expansion, any number of new keys can be logged into the system easily. Keys to different departments can be stored together in one cabinet. Assignment of keys to various groups is also possible with the flexible authorization feature. The possibility of thefts and vandalism is also less since everything is documented. 

This is one of those industries where organizations have overly large facilities. The diverse variety of instruments used here is usually expensive. To secure critical areas and equipment, these big facilities generally rely on electronic access control units. But facility managers can get into a problem when using only them. In case of emergencies, like the recent Facebook outage, keys are needed as a backup. These keys are therefore required to be controlled with extreme caution.

With electronic key control systems, this can be effortlessly achieved. You get most of the features of electronic access control even if you use only physical keys. The various benefits include easy traceability, audit trails, mobile key control, and authentication transfer. Vehicle key management of complicated supply chains is also possible with ease.

In a nutshell, every industry deals with some kind of key management or associated issues. All of those can be resolved by using electronic key management systems within the company.

1. Law Enforcement’s Lost and Stolen Gun Problem – The Trace
2. MGH to Pay $2.3 Million to Resolve Drug Diversion Allegations – United States Department of Justice
3. The Theft of Medicines from Italian Hospitals – Transcrime
4. Medicine Thefts And Their Prevention: Current Approach In Italy And Future Perspectives
5. Americans spend over $1,000 a year on lotto tickets – CNBC
6. About Half of Americans Play State Lotteries –  Gallup
7. Truck Accidents Due to Drug and Alcohol Use – Gerson & Schwartz