SALTO contactless RFID solution helps secure Bunbury Catholic College

SALTO Systems provide everything the college wanted, and offered the best return on investment (ROI)

Bunbury Catholic College is proud of its status as one of the leading co-educational high schools in Western Australia, and comes from the Marist and Mercy orders and formed after the amalgamation of St Francis Xavier’s College (Marist Brothers) and St Josephs College (Mercy Sisters) in 1973.

Today the College continues this tradition to provide a catholic secondary education for over 1400 students from the greater Bunbury region across two campuses; the original Marist Campus and the new Mercy campus at Australind with a foundation intake of Year 7, 8 and 9 students to whom it offers an extensive range of excellent academic, cultural and sporting opportunities.

The project

With the College proving ever popular with families in the feeder primary schools catchment area as well as with students from outlying areas in Donnybrook, Harvey and Collie is was decided that a second campus was needed to cope with the College’s rapid growth. With land in Australind already purchased some time previously the project could begin.

Bunbury Catholic College’s Bursar Brent Steere was responsible for the selection of the security solution for the new campus. He comments, “I realised that mechanical keys were yesterday’s technology and that far more secure, efficient alternatives were available. While security was the main concern, so too were the costs as we were keen to buy once with a solution that would give us everything we need now but be future proof and capable of growth for if and when our needs change.”

Brent invited local security specialists Security and Key Distributors, of Welshpool, WA in to discuss the various options available and it soon became apparent that a contactless RFID solution from SALTO Systems could provide everything they wanted, and would offer the best return on investment (ROI).

Commenting on the benefits of contactless RFID solutions, David Stocks, Operations Manager of Security and Key Distributors, states, “SALTO solutions are in use around the world in educational environments, including universities, university housing, schools, research institutes, academies, kindergartens and more where they provide security, access control and campus management.

Security measures in universities, colleges and schools need to be robust and effective but unobtrusive. Parents need to trust educational institutions to look after their children, so it is vital that they provide effective 24/7 security and ensure both students and staff are safe and protected at all times.

Building entrances, classrooms, lecture rooms, libraries, laboratories, staff rooms, sports centres and more can all be protected by smart access control that allows access to specific rooms or areas for selected periods only, with doors auto locking at pre-specified times as necessary.

And with SALTO AMOK electronic escutcheons classrooms and facilities can be quickly locked down during a security or other emergency event. SALTO educational access control provides a secure, flexible solution to all of these requirements and more, so for me it was the perfect solution for Brent’s needs.”

Securing the campus

Creating the correct easy to use but secure environment throughout the new campus was a key objective. Educational environments typically present challenges for access and key control, as one misplaced key can result in a security breach, opening the door to unwelcome intruders. Schools, College or Universities that have yet to upgrade to an electronic solution have little control over how many keys have been issued or are in use.

This was something Bunbury Catholic College were determined to avoid with the new campus. They recognised that

security should always be an important aspect of school management, in particular realising the importance of prevention over response. SALTO’s report capabilities let the authorities in the College know whether the doors are locked or unlocked, and allows them to control who can enter the building and when.

David Stocks continues “We’ve secured 85 doors across campus including administration, classrooms, office doors, stores, entrances, staff rooms, IT Rooms, and staff toilets with a mix of SALTO CU50ENSVN wall reader update points as well as stand-alone battery operated electronic AMOK escutcheons and GEO cylinders. SALTO is also being used to control access to the photo copy machines.

The locks now control who can access what, where and when and if card security is breached due to the loss or theft of a card, it can be instantly deleted without the need or cost of rekeying or changing locks – saving the College time and money.”

Bursar Brent Steere is delighted with the results, and concludes, “Not only did Security and Key Distributors provide us with everything we needed, but their project management and delivery capabilities were second to none. The new access control system now installed at the Mercy campus will not only offer a fast ROI but also provide us with what we most wanted, good, effective school security.

Based on the latest in electronic access control technology, SALTO provides us with real-time communication and state-of-the art battery powered escutcheons. The battery powered locks also cut down on energy costs as they do not need to be permanently connected to a main power source, saving the College dollars which is very important in today’s financial climate.”