ABB standardizes its access control

ABB is a giant company with facilities all over Sweden. Wishing to standardize its access control in several of its locations, ABB selected ASSA’s ARX system.

Versatile robots

They milk cows, sort chocolates and lift heavy objects—ABB’s robots have countless uses all around the world.
“When the distance between a car’s body and hood needs to be exactly one millimeter on both sides, you need a robot’s precision,” says Anders Johansson, one of the production managers at ABB Robotics in Västerås.
His facility manufactures about 80% of ABB’s annual production of some 10,000 robots (the rest are produced in Norway and China). Västerås is also the center where five Swedish ABB facilities’ access control systems are managed. ABB employees in Umeå, Storvik, Norrköping, Malmö and Göteborg now use ASSA’s ARX access control system.

Convenient for everyone

Sonny Johansson, property manager at ABB Fastighet AB, and ABB’s security division selected ARX for several reasons. A touch-free system is not only convenient for users, but also for the property owner, because it reduces wear and tear on card readers and cards. Another advantage is having total control over authorization and who has issued it.
But the critical aspect for ABB in Sweden—which has operations in over 35 cities—is that the access control systems for several facilities can be controlled from one place.
“ARX belongs to a new generation of access control systems that can link several facilities together in a single network,” Sonny Johansson explains. “It also links the security alarms to the access control system.”

Helping each other

The five pilot facilities needed better access control systems. Three needed to upgrade existing systems, while two had none at all. The new access control system is integrated with Galaxy security alarms, and in the Göteborg and Malmö facilities the systems are also linked to CCTV.
ABB is one of the members of ASSA’s experience group regarding ARX. Sonny Johansson is very pleased with this initiative:
“With an experience group, members can get advice from each other if they encounter a problem. By taking advantage of others’ experiences we can do more things right.”