Page 10 - Security Today, February 2017

Guarding Valuables
Boston’s prestigious Berklee College of Music finds a way to protect audio equipment
By Wendy Bowman
erklee College of Music is home to a lot of tal- ented musicians, but also to a variety of expensive audio equipment. Relatively small microphones worth more than $50,000 each, for example, are not uncommon. To put an end to theft and other
issues that came along with storing equipment in traditional cabi- nets with locks and keys, the college recently deployed HES K100 wireless cabinet locks with Aperio technology.
Nick Costa, technical operations manager at Berklee, said that the search for a new solution began after cabinets with traditional locks and keys were broken into numerous times.
“We knew it wasn’t a good long-term solution,” Costa said. “So we began researching wireless solutions that would allow us to track access to the cabinets where we stored valuable school equipment.”
After searching the market, the HES K100 emerged as the clear choice. The four initial HES locks Berklee purchased are installed in music studios and used on cabinets that store micro- phones, headsets and other expensive equipment. Rather than issuing keys at the beginning of each term, access rights are pro- grammed onto cards that store data regarding which students have access to which cabinets during which terms. When the terms end, the access does as well.
“The ability to control access at a very specific level is critical
for a school like ours,” Costa said. “We don’t have a ton of space, being in a city setting, so classrooms get used for multiple purposes. Having students use the same room but different equipment is a common occurrence.”
The initial deployment of the HES K100 cabinet locks with Aperio technology at Berklee brought together the IT depart- ment, locksmiths, faculty and staff, all of whom have seen the importance, and benefits, of the project.
“They are all big supporters of the initiative,” Costa said. “Since we deployed the cabinet locks, we have had zero property loss in the areas where we’ve installed the locks.”
Costa expects the success of the initial deployment to help keep the long-range plan moving forward. The goal is to com- pletely phase out keys for faculty by installing HES locks in ev- ery classroom. Since it will eliminate the cumbersome process of keeping track of all the keys issued to adjunct faculty, he expects the conversion to be as beneficial as the initial
deployment. “Overall, our decision to move to
electronic access control with Aperio technol-
ogy has been a great investment for our cam-
pus,” Costa said.
Wendy Bowman is the marketing communica- tions manager at ASSA ABLOY Phoenix.
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WIRELESS CABINET