Tired of carrying around all those keys? ACME Locksmith can conduct a master key system install to reduce the number of keys you’re carrying for your business down to just one key.
What is Master Keying?
Master rekeying sets up a door lock so that it can be opened using different keys. You can configure the system to allow one key (the master key) to open many of the doors, while other keys open only specific doors . For example, one key might open every door in a building, and another only one office door. This increases security by giving people access only to their necessary areas, helping prevent unauthorized entry. The staff needing access to multiple doors, will just need to carry one key for all of them. This system benefits businesses by enhancing security through limited access.
Why You Need a Master Key System
Master keying if more common in commercial buildings.
In a commercial building, a division director might need access to all office doors in their division, while team members only need keys for their own offices. In a normal key system, each lock worked with only one key, so every door would have a unique key. This requires cleaning crews or managers to carry multiple keys or businesses to maintain an area to store the multitude of keys for retrieval.
Senior staff, security and cleaning crews end up with a large set of keys, complicating entry to specific offices.
Often, to avoid the hassle, office doors are left unlocked, posing a significant security risk since anyone can enter any area unchecked.
Master Keying | A Better Solution
In a master key system, senior staff have a single key that opens every door in the company: deadbolts, door locks, padlocks, and storage areas. They need just one key for complete access. Below them, department heads have a key that opens all doors within their specific department.
For example, in the legal department, the department head’s key opens all doors within that department but none outside it. However, the senior staff or owner’s key can open all those doors as well due to the master key system, which allows locks to be opened by two different keys.
Further down the hierarchy, individual office staff have keys that only open their own office doors.
This setup demonstrates a three-level master key system:
- Office staff have keys only to their own offices.
- Department heads have keys that open every office within their department.
- Senior staff or owners have a master key that opens every door across all departments.
Master keying can even go a step further. If you have multiple locations you simply add another level to the key system (one key for each office, one key for each department, one key that works the entire building and one key that works every building).
Benefits of a Master Key System
Security: Master key systems limit access so individuals can only enter doors they’re authorized for. Doors stay locked outside business hours, ensuring unauthorized people can’t get in. If an employee is fired, you only need to rekey the locks they had access to. For example, if they were a department head, just rekey that department’s doors. Using a restricted key system can eliminate the need for rekeying when someone leaves.
Convenience: Business owners and managers need just one key. This master key opens all necessary doors.
What to Expect When a Locksmith Creates Your Master Key System
ACME Locksmith will work with your team to design your master key system. Simple systems can be planned in just a few minutes, while more complex ones take a bit longer.
We’ll map out your lock access based on the provided information, ensuring that every door and lock is accessible to those who need it. After rekeying your building, everything will work as expected. We’ve successfully implemented key systems for buildings with over 400 doors and corporations with multiple locations.
During the planning of a master rekey, we take special care to ensure that a key for one door does not unintentionally open any other door. ACME will create and maintain a key chart that shows the necessary cuts for keys to prevent this from happening. If key changes are needed in the future, we know which key cuts are available so that new keys don’t mistakenly open unauthorized doors.
In most cases, no new door hardware is required to implement a master key system. The only exceptions might be very old buildings with varied door hardware or if you want to include padlocks that work with the same key system.
How Do Master Keys Work?
The traditional way to rekey a lock cylinder is shown on the left. When a lock cylinder uses one key, the cylinder chamber has one set of bottom pins (red) and another set of top pins (blue). The brown in this image represent springs and have no impact on which keys open the lock.
When a key is inserted, a shear line is created between the red and blue pins so that the cylinder can spin and open the lock.
In a master pinned cylinder, an additional pin (or additional set of pins) are added between the top and bottom pins.
Stacking of these pins this way creates additional shear lines so that multiple keys can be used in the cylinder. In the image on the right you see several green pins added.
If I wanted the lock to only work with two keys, I would add only one green pin to create a second shear line.
If I add several pins, as shown, I create several different new shear lines and the lock can work with several different keys. This is important if you have a very large corporation and want several keys to work one door.
As mentioned earlier, creating shear lines like this can accidentally lead to one key from one door working another door it is not suppose to. ACME Locksmith uses software when designing these systems that provides us with the key cuts necessary for hundreds of keys to ensure that this never doesn’t happen.