Key Manager

The mechanical and mechatronic (mechanical-electronic) high quality key systems have experienced a true renaissance in the recent years. It seemed for quite a long time that they would be ousted in most applications by the purely electronic systems competing with them. It turned out, however, that in many cases, the mechanical key systems remain unrivalled both in regard to the price, degree of access protection and reliability. Large industrial enterprises, housing cooperatives, public sector institutions, banks, hospitals – are the main recipients of mechanical (or mechatronic) key systems.

The top quality mechanical key systems are produced by a relatively small number of enterprises, of which each may boast of many years (frequently more than one hundred years) of presence on the market. The German producers which are well-known in Poland include, among others: DOM, ZEISS-IKON, WILKA and BKS (formerly YALE). Products of these producers are not inferior to each other in terms of quality. In this situation, purchase of a key system from a given producer is often more and more determined by additional sale arguments. In recent years, this role falls to a greater and greater extent to the key system management software. In large housing cooperatives, as well as in other economic units, it is often possible to encounter key systems containing 10 000 cylinders and up to 20 000 -30 000 keys grouped in multi-degree access hierarchies. In consequence, there are millions of possible combinations “person-key-cylinder-door”. The task of writing software enabling quick and effective management of systems of this size is a real challenge for each producer of computer software.

Searching for software that is capable of facing the requirements described above, at the beginning of the year 2001 the BKS Schlieβanlagen company addressed a request to the Macrix company to take up the elaboration and completion of this difficult task. Macrix Polska Sp. z o.o., in cooperation with its mother company Macrix Software GmbH, representing the Macrix company on the territory of Germany, took up the task of provision of the software. The result of this strategic cooperation is the KeyManager software, version 3.0, presented for the first time in March 2002 at the International Fair in Cologne. The software which is unrivalled on the European market was created at a fantastically short time. With the expansion of the offer of key systems to electronic elements, KeyManager has also taken over management of mechatronic and electronic systems.