Executive Center Office Park is a two-building office center in Fort Wayne, Indiana, that maintains a secure environment for the tenants within its office buildings with an electronic card access system.
However, as Executive Center became more popular and attracted more tenants, maintaining the security of the system became more and more time-consuming, and response time for enrolling new cards, changing opening times, and revoking access became significantly longer.
The existing card access system was outdated and did not provide a simple user interface. Each time a change was needed, the property manager had to call the original vendor and put in a ticket. Executive Center needed a solution that would enable better service and efficiency.
Then came us. Nexus Technology Partners has a track record of devising economical solutions by looking at problems from a unique perspective.
We had improved the company’s internal communications by using secure Internet connections to provide phone extensions to remote offices, and we had developed ways to add secure remote monitoring and management to even their oldest HVAC systems, some of which were built and instrumented before that thing called the Internet became popular.
So, when it came to deploying a new card access system for its commercial office facility, we were the best choice to combine the new with the old and arrive at efficiency with economy.
We recognized replacing the entire system may not have been necessary. After a careful site survey, we determined that the electro-mechanical components of the existing system were in good working order, but the old-fashioned controller provided no simple way to make changes.
It would take a little engineering and a lot of ingenuity to connect the new card access controller to the existing door locks, motion sensors, and emergency egress buttons, but we technology wizards were up to the task. By adapting modern equipment to the existing infrastructure, we were able to provide a significant upgrade without incurring the cost of complete system replacement.
During the planning stages and initial analysis of the existing system, we discovered that the old system required two telephone lines for remote maintenance. We devised a solution that made things more efficient.
The new system would be built so that both buildings could be managed as if they were one, which means making only one set of changes when a new employee starts or an old employee leaves. We used our experience in computer networking to link the two buildings and leverage the Internet connection already in use to manage the building’s HVAC system. Our speciality is designing systems to integrate and leverage what a building or client already has, and this project was no exception.
Deploying the card access system at Executive Center gave us several opportunities to deploy techniques we normally apply when developing solutions related to computer networking or security camera systems.
Thinking out of the box adds to the satisfaction we feel when we solve problems for people and makes our technicians happy to work for an organization that encourages creativity and rewards those who come up with new ideas.