17.05.2012

Keypad stops the borrowers

A contractor working on London Heathrow airport’s Terminal 2A reconstruction has stopped the unauthorised use of its aerial lifts by other contractors, thanks to a new high security keypad.

Astins, a fit out and cladding contractor, has been using a fleet of 31 scissor lifts on a £10 million dry-lining contract at the terminal. The lifts, all rented from AFI-Uplift, were constantly going missing as other contractors ‘borrowed’ them. The effect was serious disruption to the contractor’s work flow and efficiency, it therefore trialled KeyZone, a robust keypad security product from WorkZone, part of the AFI group. The trial was an immediate success and it is now fitting the device to all 31 machines.

Josh Marshall, Astins supervisor and manager, said: “Before we had the units fitted, machines were going missing on average every other day. We would leave a machine one evening and come back the next day to find it had gone. We then had to search the site to find out where it had been left. All this took up a great deal of time and exposed the machines to the risk of damage and unqualified use.”

“We trialled KeyZone on one machine and have so far fitted it to 22 of the 31 scissor lifts, with more to follow. None of the machines fitted with this device has gone missing, so the installation has been very successful.”

KeyZone is a stand-alone unit that locks and unlocks the machine’s upper control functions. Machines fitted with it will not work, even if another control box is fitted, making it one of the most secure keypads on the market. It can also take eight digit password codes, allowing for 100 million possible combinations. Operators do not have to share codes either, because each unit can be set up with up to 200 individual codes.