Assa Abloy: Wireless Access Control Secures French Town

Assa Abloy outfitted a French town’s Municipal Technical Center and several local schools with their wireless access control system Cliq. Instead of previously forty keys, employees at Villiers-le-Bel’s Technical Center now carry only one Cliq key that gives them access to all the sites they are authorized to enter. The town is also planning to add Cliq security to the rest of their local schools within the next few years.

Each person in the town’s 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.

“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 this problem, Villiers-le-Bel city administrators chose to combine Assa 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 upgrade programme.

With the new system, lost or stolen keys are cancelled instantly using the Web Manager software. The program 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 Girard.

The solution also saves time for the city’s security team, because staff no longer have to return to the Technical Centre to collect the keys. 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 Girard “Cliq met all these requirements.”

The city has already rolled out Cliq beyond their Municipal Technical Centre to ten local schools. Using the 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 twelve remaining schools with Cliq within two to three years, including canteens and boiler rooms.
Because the system can be deployed and scaled flexibly, the city’s dedicated security budget funds this gradual extension of their Cliq system.