Ground Support Worldwide - 18

equal and a team should determine what
level of security they need before heading
to a hardware store and purchasing the
first padlock on the shelf. However, security, Smith notes, needs to be balanced with
ease of use and how quickly locking and
unlocking takes. For the fast pace environment of an airport, the most secure lock on
the planet may harm operations more than
help if it takes too long to use.
"That's something that I think is really
important when somebody is looking at
deploying a solution in general, be it ours
or any other one, is what's the security
use case? What's the right hardware and
what's the right balance of security versus
convenience, and how do you find a soluPhoto courtesy of Southwest Airlines

Lock's Vault Enterprise and the Bluetooth
Padlocks throughout Southwest Airlines.
The feedback from Brumm and his employees has also helped Master Lock refine the
systems.
"The biggest thing that originally was
time-consuming for Southwest was actually
registering all those locks and getting them
in place in their system. But again, that's a
great example of an area where we worked
with them, understanding the pain point.
Since then, we have built a cool tool where
when you want to add new locks, we have a
camera scanning capability in our app. So,
you can just set up the locks and scan them
a split second at a time - scan, scan, scan,
scan, scan - and they add them all to your
account," Smith describes. "So, you can now
deploy hundreds of locks within just a few
minutes.
"Then we also have built a quick user
upload process where you can essentially
copy and paste a user list out of Excel or
an alike program. You can add literally
hundreds of thousands of locks and users
within just a couple minutes," he adds. "It's
really, really quick to deploy now through
some of the improvements that we made
after working with Southwest."
For other ground support crews looking
to adopt the same, or similar, systems, Smith
offers some advice on what to consider
before making the switch. He says the two
important factors to consider are security
and convenience. Not all locks are created

Photo courtesy of Southwest Airlines

GROUND SUPPORT
EQUIPMENT

18 GROUND SUPPORT WORLDWIDE

AUGUST 2019

tion that's going to match that need? There
are instances where somebody could accidentally create something that's too well
secured, and in the instance of ground
operations with those tugs, they start to ball
up all your operations and people struggle
to move things quickly to where they need
to be because they're struggling to get the
right access. You've got to make sure you
have that efficiency too," Smith elaborates.
With that in mind, Smith says more
and more operations across the aviation
field are beginning to adopt Master Lock's
Bluetooth Padlocks and Vault Enterprise,
with airports using them to secure access
points and perimeter fences, for example.
And for Brumm, his utilization of the
keyless systems isn't ending anytime soon.
"Southwest Airlines is known for providing superior customer service and our daily
operations play a key role in our success.
In a busy, time-driven environment like
an airport, it's critical that we can effectively and efficiently manage access to our
tugs so they're available when and where
employees need them," he says. "Managing access to equipment can be a tedious
task for operations managers that can cause
hiccups in operations. For any airlines or
airport operations teams looking to better
manage employee access to equipment, I'd
recommend Master Lock Vault Enterprise
and Bluetooth products as a smart, simple
and secure way to manage that access."
Ground Support Worldwide

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