Why a familiar security product deserves another look for commercial applications — By Jerry Burhans, Channel Championz
Security hardware professionals don't need another explanation of what a combination padlock does. The more interesting question is whether the category has been judged for too long by products designed primarily for lockers, luggage and other convenience applications.
For commercial users, the case for a resettable combination lock is different. It isn't simply about eliminating a key. It's about balancing physical security, access management, field usability and cost in applications where a conventional keyed system, or even an electromechanical lock, may not be the best fit.
That makes the modern combination padlock worth another look.
Start with the application, not the mechanism
Locksmiths know a professional padlock recommendation should always begin with the asset and threat environment. What is being secured? Is the lock controlling access to a perimeter gate, storage cage, tool enclosure, equipment cabinet or jobsite container? What level of cutting, pulling, prying or impact resistance is appropriate? Is the lock outdoors? How much shackle clearance is actually required? How often will it be operated, and by whom?
Those questions matter regardless of whether the locking mechanism uses a key or a combination.
For years, however, the combination category has often been associated with relatively light bodies, modest shackles and designs optimized for convenience. That has reinforced the perception that “combination” and “high security” occupy different ends of the market.
They don't necessarily have to.
Modern resettable designs can incorporate more substantial bodies, hardened shackles and construction intended for considerably more demanding applications. Squire, for example, has applied the same security-engineering philosophy used across its professional padlock ranges to its Vulcan combination products, including hardened boron-alloy shackles and configurations intended for commercial use.
The access-management equation changes
The strongest argument for a resettable lock may have less to do with the lock itself than with what happens after it is installed.
A keyed padlock provides a familiar and highly effective access-control model, particularly when incorporated into restricted, keyed-alike or master-keyed systems. But every key also becomes something that must be issued, controlled and ultimately recovered.
That can become cumbersome on an asset accessed by multiple maintenance employees, contractors, drivers or rotating personnel.
A resettable mechanical lock provides another option. Access can be changed by changing the combination rather than collecting keys, cutting replacements or changing cylinders.
That does not make a combination lock equivalent to a properly managed restricted-key system. A combination can be shared just as a key can be passed from one person to another, and it does not provide the audit trail of electronic access control.
But between those two solutions is a substantial group of applications where customers simply need durable mechanical security with manageable shared access. That is the space distributors should be evaluating.
Ergonomics are a security issue, too
One overlooked weakness of many traditional combination locks is field operation. Small wheels recessed underneath a lock may work perfectly well at a gym locker. Try manipulating them on an outdoor pipeline in January while wearing work gloves.
Poor usability doesn't merely inconvenience the customer. It encourages workarounds. That thinking helped drive Squire's front-facing Vulcan design. Moving larger combination wheels to the face of the lock makes the mechanism easier to see and manipulate while the lock is installed. It's a relatively simple design change, but one aimed directly at the way commercial users actually interact with hardware.
For distributors, that's an important distinction. Product selection isn't only about specifications on a page. A lock has to work mechanically and operationally in the environment where the customer uses it.
Don't put the resettables category in one bucket
Resettable padlocks aren't replacements for every keyed padlock. They aren't substitutes for restricted key control where accountability is paramount, and they aren't electronic access systems. But neither should they automatically be relegated to the consumer-retail shelf.
When a customer has multiple authorized users, recurring key-loss problems, changing contractors, remote physical assets or an application where electronic access control is just too difficult to justify, a modern commercial-grade resettable lock deserves consideration.
For security distributors, that may be the real opportunity.
The combination padlock isn't new.
What is changing is what we can reasonably expect it to do.
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About Squire
Founded in 1780, Squire is an eighth-generation, family-owned manufacturer of high-security padlocks and access solutions. Known for its Stronghold® platform and the SS100CS LEV5, Squire engineers specification-grade security for professional locksmiths and distributors across North America. For distributor and locksmith inquiries, contact Jerry Burhans at jerry@squirelocksusa.com
Photo caption: Squire Vulcan gives locksmiths a professional-grade resettable padlock option for critical infrastructure applications.