During my twenty years functioning as
locksmith at Queens College I learned
many facets of the profession, which I will share. The listing below is
partial.
I am a member of the
New York Association of In-house Locksmiths, through which I've been able to
further my education in locksmithing through classes in master keying, lock
picking, etc.
During
my tenure as security equipment manager I computerized all door and key records
(some 10,000 records) using dBase II, III and FoxPro (in successive order.)
Upon my retirement I provided the IT department with details of the databases I
used, so they could construct a program for my successor.
Other in-house locksmiths may be interested in the structure of
the databases.
Locksmith duties at Queens College include:
Cut keys
Combinate cylinders
Repair locks
Order equipment and supplies
Specify locks for new construction. This is one of the most
difficult parts of the job. It takes many hours over many months, and
requires contact with contractors, department chairs, campus facilities office, etc.
The process is as follows:
Specify hardware in advance of final specification date.
Obtain plans and hardware schedule for the building from Campus
Facilities office.
Find every door (whether lockable or not) on plans and hardware
schedule; make sure they match, and ensure that there's no conflict
with intended function or life safety codes.
Enter information for each door into a new database for this building
only.
Database fields include architectural room number, architectural door
number, department, room description, master, Queens College room number,
hook number, possibly schedule page number. Database is indexed on
architectural room number and architectural door number (separate
indices).
Enter the first record of the building as completely as possible,
filling in fields which would be required later with underscores
to provide lines for manual entry on printouts (such as Queens College
room number, hook number and dept.)
The best way for me to enter all this was to use FoxPro's Browse
screen, which allowed me a spreadsheet-like view of about 25 records on a
screen, showing only the fields of interest, hiding others which would be
automatically filled-in by the "carry" function of FoxPro (beginning a new
record {with Ctrl-N} 'carried' the values of all fields from the previous
record, so only changes had to be made for the new record to be complete
and correct). This avoided the necessity of filling in repetitive
fields (such as building, descriptions of 'classroom' and department
names).
Determine room assignments by department; enter into database
Print out listing for each department
Confer with departments regarding the way they want the rooms keyed,
including department grandmaster and other masters.
Determine keying schedule based on department requests.
Enter new data into database. Field entered is "master", and is
later indexed
on
that.
Print out two listings, by room and by master, and send to keying
vendor.
Request departments provide listings of rooms and names of occupants for
key issue.
Obtain final Queens College room numbers from from Campus Facilities
office.
Enter them into database, while checking to see that there are no
conflicts. Create index on room number.
Print out database of all information; one indexed by room number,
another indexed by architectural door number. Provide blank space to
check off when final core or cylinder is installed.
Receive final cores or cylinders, and check for completeness and
correctness
Decide on hook numbers for new keys, and place one manufacturers' cut
key on each hook.
Cut and issue keys as requested by departments
Install cores or cylinders as college gains beneficial occupancy of each
space, and enter date for each space into database.
Merge new building database into existing master database of all
buildings.
Obtain building keys not part of master system (such as fire alarm panel
keys, cabinet keys, etc.), and assign hook numbers to each, making sure
there are no duplications; enter into database Issue keys as
determined by key requests.
Deal with inevitable room-department changes after everything was
specified and completed.
In spite of mammoth jobs like this, if you look at my page you'll see it
was not a factor in why
I retired!,
Locksmithing
