Keys are small, mechanical objects that have been used to secure guestrooms and hotel assets for decades. Though access cards have replaced them as the leading method, dozens to thousands of physical keys exist at hotel properties for a variety of applications, including housekeeping departments, supply and storage areas, mechanical rooms, data server rooms, offices, and fleet vehicles. For hotels that use electronic key control systems, simple keys provide security and asset management, but a lesser-known benefit transforms daily processes into improved, highly efficient business operations. The key to tapping into this benefit lies in leveraging key control system data.
Every removal and return from an electronic key control system generates data that is recorded by the system’s software. Daily reports provide a time-stamped scope of activity among authorized hotel key control system users. This accountability reveals how assets are used, where workflow patterns emerge, what assets are being used, and which areas of the building are being accessed. Through routine data analysis, hotel management can make important changes that reduce inefficiencies, manage risk, and improve compliance.
This means that keys are no longer just passive security implements that manage assets and provide access control. With electronic key control systems, hotel administration and management are empowered with a data-rich resource that is a regular supplier of operational information, which helps them make important adjustments and changes that create a proactive environment based on factual data, rather than a reactive environment based on fragmented information.
By focusing on key control data, hotel administration has plenty to discover about how key control data provides intelligence to business operations so that resources can be maximized for greater productivity and efficiency. Two specific examples illustrate how hotel operations teams can benefit from intelligence derived from key control data:
Managing Outside Contractors
With hotel renovations underway, the facilities manager assigns keys to contractors for specific days and times to the maintenance supply room, where tools are stored in asset management lockers. Although the keys are removed and returned on time by all authorized users, a saw and power drill go missing. The facilities manager then runs an audit report, and upon review, they identify the individuals who had access to the maintenance room and the asset lockers around the time when the tools went missing. Whether the tools were inadvertently left behind in the renovations area or nefariously taken, the facilities manager can now investigate further. While this is being done, the facilities manager immediately removes current key control permissions and creates new permissions with multi-factor authentication to provide extra security for the keys and the assets to prevent further security incidents.
Improving the Process for the Hotel Housekeeping Departments
Hotel housekeeping staff begin their shifts daily by retrieving keys from a recently installed electronic key control system to access equipment and supplies. At shift end, department keys are required to be returned to the system. These procedures provide a time and date stamped accountability record for each staff member. Over several weeks, the housekeeping manager has been receiving many late key return notifications and has decided to run an audit trail report. Upon review, the manager discovers that the late key returns are from staff working the furthest from the key control system. A networked, add-on key control cabinet was installed in a more convenient location, with access to nearby equipment and supplies. As a result, the housekeeping department is running more productively and efficiently, with time savings and reduced bottlenecking for key retrievals and returns. Supplies and equipment now rotate more efficiently as well, saving money on inventory costs. Late key and supply returns are few and far between as well, reducing the potential for security incidents.
Key control secures and tracks keys, and it also adds accountability, access control, and asset management for hotel operations. Furthermore, it provides important data, turning every key transaction into beneficial information to fine-tune hotel operations for greater productivity, cost savings, and improved workflows. With the intelligent data that electronic key control generates, this technology is paramount for security operations, compliance, and risk management for more intelligent data-driven hotel properties around the world.
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