Challenge
Founded as a private gas company in the 1800s, Industrielle Werke Basel (IWB) is now an independent utility owned by the city and canton of Basel. It employs over 750 people and supplies around 190,000 customers in Basel and north-western Switzerland with electricity, district heating, biogas and natural gas, energy services, telecommunications and safe drinking water.
As critical infrastructure for one of Switzerland’s most economically dynamic regions, IWB needed a proven locking system that would equip it to face 21st-century security challenges.
Key requirements included:
- A security system flexible enough to work across geographically distributed sites of diverse types, from water plants to electricity stations
- Locks that could withstand extremes of climate and weather, including solar radiation, freezing temperatures, and heavy rain
Solution
For IWB, the answer was CLIQ® from ASSA ABLOY. CLIQ® is an intelligent mechatronic locking system that combines the best of mechanical security and electronic access control.
Users are issued with a single, programmable key that enables them to open just the locks for which the key has authorization.
Power for communication between key and cylinder comes from a standard battery in each key, so technicians servicing the system don’t need to start up each cylinder to replace a battery.
No power supplied to the cylinders also means installing CLIQ® needs no wiring – a big advantage in securing remote or outdoor openings. Precision mechanics inside every CLIQ® cylinder also guarantee durability. CLIQ® locking cylinders are compliant with EN1303, EN12320, and EN15684 – and so offer high levels of protection against physical attack. They are IP rated, waterproof, and ATEX approved for use in potentially explosive areas.
It’s easy to reprogram access rights at any time with the user-friendly CLIQ® Web Manager software. CLIQ® remote programming devices enable managers to update keys anywhere, even in the field. If someone loses a key, it’s straightforward for system administrators to delete its authorization from the system. Thanks to CLIQ®, IWB can wave goodbye to the time and expense wasted on refitting locks every time a key goes missing.
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