Knowledge base · Technical note
Planning a storage key system before you order
Keying cannot be fixed after production. These are the five answers we need to build a key plan that still works when you re-order in three years.
The problem with mixed keys
Most facilities buy locks as each building comes online, one order at a time. Three years on, the key drawer has stopped making sense: staff work out what fits by trying it, and a missing manager key turns into a question about the whole site rather than a single unit. Keying is the one part of the specification that cannot be corrected after production, so it is settled before anything is ordered.
Three ways to structure it
| Structure | How it works | Suits | Trade-off |
|---|---|---|---|
| Keyed alike | One key opens a defined group of units | Small facilities, or groups under one operator | If one key is lost, the whole group is exposed |
| Keyed different | Every unit has its own key | Maximum tenant separation | More keys to manage and replace |
| Master key / manager key | Each tenant key opens only its own unit; a manager key opens every unit, every unit on one site, or every site in a group | Multi-site operators and any facility with an overlock routine | Needs planning before production |
Keyed alike, keyed different and master key compared — the same three structures, with the trade-off each one carries.
The five answers we need
- Unit count per site, and total across sites
- Whether each tenant key must be unique to its unit
- How many manager keys you need, and what each one should open
- What happens when a tenant key is lost — rekey the unit, or accept the exposure until move-out
- How vacant and overdue units are handled, and whether the manager key reaches them
With those five points settled we can draft the plan. Without them, any quotation is a guess, because keying is the part that cannot be changed afterwards.
Keying and overlock hardware belong together
An overlock is only useful if the manager already carries the key that opens it. That makes the plate part of the keying decision rather than an accessory bought afterwards, and it is worth settling in the same conversation as the cylinders — otherwise the manager ends up with two keys for one job.
Re-order continuity
Store the plan. Dimensions, finish, artwork and keying are recorded against your specification, so a cylinder ordered three years later still matches the keys your tenants already hold. Without that record, the second order quietly becomes a different system.
Confirm it on your own doors
Send a door photo, the cylinder size or the mounting dimensions. We confirm fit with a physical sample before you commit to a quantity.
What readers ask next
Sending the brief, and what comes back.
Can you build the key plan from our unit list?
Yes. Send the unit list, the levels you need and who holds each one, and a draft plan comes back for you to confirm before production.
What if we do not know our final unit count yet?
A plan built on a phase-one count still works if the levels are right. Send the structure you intend and the count you have, and let the count be confirmed later rather than the structure.
How do we keep the plan usable in three years?
File the keying record alongside the order it belongs to, and hand that file to whoever takes the plan over. The structure is written down rather than remembered, so a later batch turns the same keys instead of starting a second system.