When five council water authorities merged to form Urban Utilities, they brought with them varying legacy security systems. To move forward, it needed a unified, digital solution.
When organisations are merged or acquired there are typically legacy systems that must be carried over during the transition period to ensure that the merger continues smoothly. These include IT systems, assets, processes and in many cases both electronic and physical security.
When the water services of Brisbane, Ipswich, Lockyer Valley, Scenic Rim and Somerset councils were merged to form Urban Utilities, each of the five water authorities had varying legacy mechanical key systems that were used across their networks.
Urban Utilities Security Operations Coordinator, David Badke, said, “After the merger, these systems continued to be utilised for a period of time to allow a solution to be identified that met the technology requirements, reliability standards and unique access profile hierarchies, and could cater for a moving work force spread over 14,300km².”
With mechanical key systems, it is extremely difficult to keep track of where keys are or maintain an audit trail of who has used what key and when.
These issues mean making security-based decisions are an educated guess at best. The critical nature of any utility company means locks and padlocks are required to secure assets with varying security levels which are often spread out across vast distances and sometimes even in different states.
Urban Utilities recognised that the solution would have to come in the form of an electro-mechanical key system, capable of overcoming a number of risks and costs, including:
- The unfeasible cost of hard-wired access control across each site
- The inherent limitations of a mechanical master key system from an audit trail perspective
- The limitations of a mechanical master key system from a key management point of view (contractors or staff picking up and dropping off keys, key registrations, offline database management, etc.)
The CyberLock solution
Urban Utilities needed to overcome these challenges by designing and implementing an enterprise security keying solution.
The company undertook a diligent assessment of the market, including trialling several electro-mechanical master key systems. Ultimately, Urban Utilities decided that the EKA Cyberlock was the right master key system for its assets.
EKA CyberLock was chosen because of its ability to reprogram keys on demand with customised individual user access profiles, which allows a single key to be shared between multiple users.
The CyberLock system is also capable of recording secure audit trail data to inform security management.
“Key sharing is simple because CyberKeys can be updated by any user using the CyberLink mobile app and the CyberKey’s Bluetooth capabilities to communicate to the database,” Mr Badke said.
“The update process is quick and simple, and as it is portable to the user’s location, it has increased staff productivity.”
Urban Utilities was introduced the technology when its partner, John Barnes & Co, was conducting product training on a new product suite by EKA CyberLock.
Retired Locksmith Manager at John Barnes & Co, John Neroni, recalled this training session by the EKA team.
“One particular solution that stood out to us was the CyberKey Blue2 with the newly developed CyberAudit Link mobile app,” Mr Neroni said.
“This development was a game changer. Keys could now be updated anywhere via the app without the key holder visiting a set location which offered potential clients massive productivity savings. Needless to say, we were blown away by it. The next day, I contacted David at Urban Utilities and requested a meeting to explain the CyberKey solution.”
Testing, testing
After becoming interested in the system, Urban Utilities decided to trial EKA CyberLock in a real-world scenario by installing several Carbine C45-Marine grade padlocks fitted with IP68 rated electronic CyberLock cylinders.
The system was to be administered in the cloud on a demonstration CyberAudit Web server, which, if later adopted, could be simply migrated to a production server.
Part of the trial involved using the CyberKeys how a typical user would, by:
- Recharging the CyberKeys in their cars
- Leaving CyberKeys on the dashboard in the heat
- Activating a Bluetooth CyberKey with the CyberAudit Link mobile app when in mobile reception and visit multiple sites where there is minimal or no mobile reception and see if the CyberKey would open the Carbine padlocks
- Unlocking access points, leaving them open, and verifying from the CyberAudit Web management software what detailed audit trail and reporting would be available to address these types of safety risks
During the trial the company also made use of over the phone trouble shooting with EKA CyberLock support staff, which resolved more than 95 per cent of all issues in the field.
“The trial was a success,” Mr Badke said.
“The next steps were determining the number of locks, CyberKeys and other CyberLock hardware or communicators we required to make our staff and contractors’ access as seamless as possible.”
Lock it in
Satisfied with its choice, Urban Utilities proceeded to roll out more than 500 locks fitted with EKA CyberLock IP68 electronic cylinders and issued over 300 CyberKeys across its water networks.
“As part of our rollout plan, EKA CyberLock delivered a comprehensive training package to my team,” Mr Badke said.
“This included detailed ‘how to’ videos and documentation that catered for all types of users, from office staff to technicians and contractors.”
Now, Urban Utilities’ CyberLocks average 2,300 recorded opens per month, or 75 opens a day.
Since the installation, there have been zero CyberLock cylinders failed in the field, with only between five and ten locks found to have function issues which were detected before deployment.
“With any IT or physical system that is implemented, you do expect a very small number of hiccups or failures. We are quite pleased that EKA CyberLock has stood up well to these challenging environments the locks are installed in,” Mr Badke said.
The installation of EKA CyberLock has aided Urban Utilities in modernising its security and provided the ability to secure water assets in an efficient way.
To read the full case study, click here or visit ekacyberlock.com.a
