A new level of security for Auckland War Memorial Museum

Auckland War Memorial Museum stands on the hill known by Māori as Pukekawa and first built in 1929 in remembrance to those lost in the First World War. It has grown to house a pre-eminent Māori and Pacific collection, significant natural history resources and major social and military history collections. Today, it is recognised as one of New Zealand's iconic landmarks and one of our finest heritage buildings, which is secured with PROTEC2 CLIQ by Abloy Oy.
"This has been one of the easiest technology projects I’ve been involved in, due directly to the product and project support provided by ASSA ABLOY. They helped us develop a system then designed the architecture for it." Sir Kenneth (Ken) McKenzie, Security Head of the Museum

Challenges

With so many precious artefacts housed inside, the museum needed a more secure, modern door and display case locking system that would be sensitive and appropriate to a significant heritage building. The requirements for the new security system were:

  • More flexible key management 
  •  Integration to Museum's existing access control system
  • Wireless locking system without risk of damage to heritage fabric
‘We needed to bring our door security into the twenty-first century,’ says the museum’s head of security, Sir Kenneth (Ken) McKenzie. ‘But we were faced with costs of between $3,500 and $8,000 per heritage door for new electronic locks and swipe card readers. With over 170 doors, the cost was simply out of the question.’

Solution - Auckland War Memorial Museum

Following an introduction by the museum’s architects, Ken met with the ASSA ABLOY team to view the PROTEC2 CLIQ system and evaluate its suitability. Bought about by new technology and the ‘internet of things’, CLIQ is a connected system of wireless smart locks, operated with battery-powered keys. It uses AES encryption for every electronic exchange – the current gold standard for wireless security and used by institutions such as the US government.

All keys are numbered and assigned to an individual and activated by their user pin at the start of each work day. Keys automatically switch off a few hours after activation, so if a key is lost or goes missing (unbeknownst to the key holder), it soon expires. And if the key owner reports it missing, it can be blocked straight away.

Key data is relayed to a database for the museum team to track the audit trail of keys and doors accessed in order to manage the building. Doors can be assigned individual security settings – some are set for wider usage while others can be locked down to a few individuals.

Benefits of Abloy's solution

  •  CLIQ provides benefits such as remote audit trails, and the ability to easily manage key access for staff, tradespeople, cleaners and other contractors.
  • The CLIQ solution has given the museum a level of control far beyond what it had before and in keeping with state-of-the-art museum security global best practice.
  • CLIQ locks don’t need wiring, they can fit into most existing locksets, and can be installed without damage to heritage building fabric.
‘Staff love it. It’s user-friendly and easier than the old system. Everyone is in the habit of badging in each morning and updating their keys. It is heritage sensitive, gives us remote access control to individual keys and individual doors, and we were able to customise it to fit our HID chip for swipe access. The system has taken our security to a whole new level."