Access control by Nedap Security Management

The Swabian automotive supplier Erkert specialises in hard and soft processing of steel and processing aluminium to make customer-specific precision parts and components. The company's structures, which have grown over time, have led to the company's property being scattered around the site at Sulzbach an der Murr. The new access system installed by the company ACEA GmbH, a specialist in business software and E-business solutions, had to bring these different locations together and at the same time reflect the customer's shift patterns. The AEOS®-System of the Dutch technology company Nedap was used.

CNC automatic lathes, honing machines and multi-spindle machines stand in the works of one of the largest suppliers of turned parts in Germany, the company Hermann Erkert. For the most part these are special machines developed by the company, with which it can make capacity available for serial production, even at short notice. They are used to produce highly sensitive and complex precision parts, mostly to supply the car industry.

Customers such as Daimler-Chrysler, Bosch, FAG, Hilti, LuK, Siemens Automotive and ZF use these high-tech products which are supplied ready to fit and pre-assembled as parts for steering, brakes, pumps and injection systems in vehicles.

This highly modern machinery is located in the Swabian-Franken Forest national park in the nationally acclaimed spa town of Sulzbach an der Murr, about 40 km north east of Stuttgart. Erkert is 50, somewhat like an exemplary solid middleclass resident of Baden-Wurttemberg. The firm employs a highly qualified workforce of over 850 men and women, and has a consistent commitment to training: every year 30 industrial technicians are trained in the areas of precision tools and light engineering.

Access + existing time recording
The company's continual expansion has led to the production shops being spread around the town. On top of this the real challenge, according to Dirk Kappert, Managing Director of the Oberschleißheim company ACEA GmbH, in the "access control" project which he designed and implemented, lies in the fact that individual production units in Erkert actually have varying shift patterns which the access management system has to reflect simultaneously, but also flexibly.

The new system therefore had to be able to link together various different sites, be integrated into the customer's own shift planning tool and maintain the existing reader infrastructure. ACEA GmbH has already installed a time-recording system here and the existing Legic Transponders were now also to be used for access. With the access system used up to now, this could not be done.

Flexible and easy to maintain
The concept proposed by ACEA GmbH, explained Dirk Kappert, therefore consisted of a flexible access management system with low maintenance costs in a single place, with which external systems could be easily integrated. It was implemented using a solution from Nedap, the Software AEOS® Enterprise. It is a web-based access control and security management system which can be accessed with any normal web browser independent of site, therefore ideal when the company's sites are scattered. It works on the principle of "decentralised intelligence" and therefore functions securely independent of the availability of the network or the server. AEOS® is not only an access management product, however, but also offers visitor management, vehicle identification and EMA functions, so that almost all the areas of a modern facility control software package are covered.

One of the particular advantages of the Nedap products is the open strategy made possible by the database-supported system with which other systems can be integrated seamlessly, regardless of circumstances such as time recording or staff resource planning. Erkert, for instance, has a complex shift planning tool for its various production shops which manages various shift patterns for different groups of workers and the various different works and with which access had to be linked. It poses no problem, for instance, if an employee's working hours have to be moved to the following day, in Works 3, perhaps, instead of in Works 1 and to the late shift instead of the early shift, explains Dirk Kappert.

Jürgen Frank, IT Manager at Erkert (left) and Dirk Kappert, Managing Director of ACEA GmbH, Oberschleißheim Implemented at lightning speed
For Kappert, what was particularly convincing about the Nedap system was the speed with which the project was carried out: within only a day and a half the existing Legic readers and the Nedap access management system were linked together. The fact that the existing cabling infrastructure could be used was very helpful not a single meter of new cable had to be laid. The customer benefits from this minimal project time, as the service component of overall investment costs thereby remains particularly low. The fact that external readers and aerials can be connected, and the modular structure of hardware and software mean that the customer's earlier investments can also be truly protected. Plus, the licences relate solely to the functions actually used the customer therefore pays only for what he really needs and uses.

Complex system user-friendly
Ultimately one of the main deciding factors in favour of the Nedap system for Mr Herr Jürgen Frank, Project and IT Manager at Erkert, was the fact that it is particularly user-friendly and can be easily extended: the user interface "AEOSfaces" can be set up precisely according to the wishes and tasks of the relevant employee and his own operating processes. Security guards, receptionist and employees in the telephone exchange can all operate the system immediately without training. Overall a very flexible and functional access system was created there is already a plan to expand it (by for instance including IP cameras to monitor the entrance).

Erkert GmbH, www.erkert.de
ACEA GmbH, www.acea.de