Mechanical door locks and lock cylinders are the easiest and most secure way of protecting your property. Whether hotels, shops, sports facilities, airports, hospitals, in the office or at home, the mechanical cylinder locking system is one of the most common security solutions in our industry. Whether you opt for individual keying, keyed-alike, a central locking system, a master key system, a grand master key system or a complex master key system – a well-planned locking system increases the security of your building as well as the safety of the building user.

Traditionally, locking systems are designed with the aid of a locking plan. This locking plan defines which keys are allowed to open which doors. In this way, the locking plan helps to maintain control over the system. As an example, the planning of a Dormakaba mechanical key system is supported with their flexible keylink planning method. With tools like keylink, your planned locking system remains adaptable and expandable, providing you piece of mind throughout your building’s lifecycle.

A master key plan is the essence of modern mechanical access control. It is recommended for all types of building, from residential houses and apartment blocks through to medium-sized or large organisations with a hundred keys or more. These systems are particularly important for three main reasons:

1. Keeping control of who holds which key to which room, for security reasons.
2. To eliminate the need to carry too many keys, resulting in convenience for the building user.
3. For safety reasons. When emergency services need quick, round-the-clock access to all rooms without having to search for the right key. Examples would be nursing homes, hospitals, student accommodations and hostels.

An example of a basic keying structure is as follows: The master key held by the managing director would open all the doors in the building. Group key A opens the entrance door and all doors on the ground floor. This key is kept by the floor manager. The same applies to group key B. Finally, each employee has a key that opens the main entrance door, their own office door, as well as their filing cabinets. These keys enable each user to cover the authorisations applicable to them within the locking plan hierarchy with a single key. They work with a wide variety of cylinders, such as door cylinders, padlocks, furniture cylinders and even switch cylinders. A well-designed locking plan can vastly improve both the convenience and security of a building for its users.

Cylinder maintenance is too often overlooked, and to ensure the system continues to function as intended, graphite and cylinder cleaners are the preferred products to be used. It is, however, important to note that only cylinder cleaner should be used with reversible key systems. In harsh environments, it is recommended to maintain the cylinders on a six-monthly cycle, or as required.

Dormakaba offers various options for organising a locking system for your individual locking solution. They can provide you with mechanical key systems with a flexible planning software, which leaves almost all options for future expansion of the unit open to you.

Dormakaba has two different lock cylinder systems to choose from, and with their numerous cylinder designs and configurations, you will find the matching solution for every requirement. Their lock cylinders are also easy to combine with an RFID clip with electronic lock cylinders or electronic access control.