Asset Management: When You Have to Secure More Than Keys

“The asset has been secured.” You may have heard an FBI agent drop this line in your favorite crime drama after they lock down a person or item important to national security.  

When a character in a hit series mentions an "asset," they could be referring to anything from a top-secret file to a lethal weapon. Depending on what industry you work in, this could be the case for your business as well. As a manager, you may need to secure not only keys but assets in a variety of forms. 

Let's look at a few industries that use electronic key management systems to secure assets other than keys.

Law Enforcement Agencies 

Along with managing key access, police departments and correctional facilities are tasked with securing assets such as firearms, tasers and other highly sensitive weapons. If any of these items were to fall into the wrong hands, it could open the department up to major liability.

An electronic asset management system with individual tamper-proof lockers and features, such as a biometric fingerprint reader to prevent unauthorized users from accessing assets, provides more security and accountability than a traditional storage area and allows law enforcement agencies to store larger items.

Higher Education Institutions

Colleges and universities not only need to keep track of keys to dormitories and other buildings but also electronic equipment and department resources. Such was the case for the College of William and Mary. 

The director of the Environment, Health and Safety Department was charged with maintaining an inventory of radioactive sealed sources. The problem was, her office was located in a separate building from where the sources were stored, making it difficult for her to be available when someone needed access. She needed a convenient and secure method to store the sources that didn't require her to be in the building. 

The college found that the KeyTrak Guardian enabled the department to meet its security standards without making it unnecessarily difficult for authorized users to gain access to the sources they needed.

Military Facilities

Similar to law enforcement agencies, in addition to securing keys and the areas they unlock, military facilities have highly sensitive weapons and information to keep secure. 

An electronic key system with lockers featuring all steel construction enables these types of facilities to safeguard larger items such as handheld radio equipment, transmitters and locators behind a passcode, fingerprint and/or proximity card.

High-security electronic key control systems with the flexibility to store items beyond just keys increase accountability, security and efficiency for a variety of businesses.

Find out more about the features of electronic key control systems here.