Access control system design

I design access control systems door by door: what each opening has to do, what hardware achieves it, how it fails, and what happens when the power goes out or the fire alarm sounds. Independent of any manufacturer, as set out in the independence policy.

The door schedule is the design

Everything else follows from it. A door schedule that is vague produces a system that is wrong in ways nobody notices until an inspection or an incident.

• Function per opening. Controlled, monitored, request to exit, free egress, delayed egress, interlocked. These are different doors with different hardware.
• Fail-safe or fail-secure, decided per door against life safety, security and the fire strategy, not applied uniformly across a building.
• Hardware selection. Strikes, maglocks, mortise locks, exit devices, and the frame and leaf conditions that rule half of them out.
• Reader technology and credential strategy, including what it takes to migrate off a legacy credential without reissuing every badge on day one.
• Position monitoring and alarm behaviour, so held and forced door events mean something instead of being ignored by month two.

Egress and code, first

This is where access control designs most often go quietly wrong, because the security requirement is loud and the code requirement is not in the room. Free egress obligations, delayed egress conditions, fire alarm release, and the authority having jurisdiction's view all constrain the design before any product is chosen.

Getting this wrong is not a performance problem. It is a failed inspection, an insurance question, or worse.

Panels, power and the parts nobody prices

• Controller and panel layout, planned against door counts, cable distances and future expansion rather than the minimum viable panel count.
• Power and battery calculations done properly. Standby duration under real load is routinely assumed rather than calculated.
• Cable schedules and pathways, including the door cores and hinge transfers that get discovered during installation.
• Integration points. Fire alarm, elevator control, intrusion, video, and visitor management. These are where projects overrun.
• Network and server requirements, designed with the security network rather than bolted on.

Platforms

Genetec Synergis, Software House C-CURE 9000, Lenel, Kantech and the mixed estates that result from acquisitions and successive integrators. Platform choice follows the requirement, and where one is already in place the design works within it and says where that limits the outcome.