Working together more flexibly in the crisis – with security
Issue 02-2020:
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How an intelligent locking system landscape with EnOcean opens up new possibilities
The coronavirus pandemic in particular is changing our working world at a rapid pace. Even before the crisis, four out of ten German companies had offered their employees the opportunity to work from home. In the first few weeks of the crisis, studies showed that COVID-19 increased this proportion significantly. Trend researchers assume that the change in the world of work will continue even after the crisis. Employees will increasingly work from their home office and from anywhere in the world. This change means that workplaces will have to be designed according to new standards. In the future, less space in the company will be used by a larger number of employees in rotation.
“Desk sharing” will be part of everyday life. Although the employees share the workplace, not only notebooks, project documents, and tools, but also the employees’ personal belongings should be immediately available when needed. Intelligent networked locking systems make this possible in the smart office.
Optimized furniture requirements
For the last four years, German locking system manufacturer BURG has been developing various electronic locks with code or RFID technology that can be wirelessly networked on the basis of EnOcean as standard and OEM solutions. The important thing here is that furniture can be retrofitted at low cost. The “retrofit” involves replacing the existing mechanical locks with smart locks. The EnOcean functionality makes cabling superfluous, saving the company money and giving it the decisive advantage that the furniture can still be used flexibly in different locations.
Simplified management
These wireless locking systems make life much simpler, especially for administration. Whether in storage compartments, changing rooms, or parcel lockers – the locks of several locations, departments or facilities can be monitored and controlled centrally via EnOcean radio in an encrypted cloud. Lockers can be locked, released, and reallocated. So a forgotten code or the loss of an RFID chip no longer entails bureaucratic effort. Authorizations can be deleted and simply reassigned without the need for facility management to be on site. Another advantage is that the use of locks in the cloud can be statistically evaluated. In this way, the company can see the actual use of the furniture in real time. If something is not needed, it can be used elsewhere.
Healthy solution
The flexibly networkable locking systems also support the implementation of company-wide hygiene concepts aimed at keeping the risk of infection among the workforce as low as possible. Centrally controlled locker solutions ensure that working materials are used efficiently and across different people despite the ban on contact, thanks to contactless transfer of packages and tools. And in the locker room, individual lockers can be deactivated via the cloud if necessary to ensure that the minimum distance within the locker room is maintained. In this way, a crisis becomes a driver of innovation.
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