Malaysian Luxury Resort Using Smart Card Powered Access Control System

• By Brent Dirks
• Feb 12, 2009

The priority at the The Club at The Saujana, a top luxury resort in Malaysia, was simple -- effective security that is discreet.

And to help accomplish that goal, the resort developers and owners turned to an access control solution from SALTO Systems anchored by contactless smart-card technology.

Located just 35 minutes from the capital, Kuala Lumpur, the complex spans 160 acres of prime tropical real estate in the rolling hills of a palm plantation. The high-end resort is made up of two newly-renovated and remodeled buildings. The buildings house 105 rooms and suites near two championship golf courses.

Realizing the benefits of a new access control system, the technology was chosen as an integral part of the redevelopment plan. Local SALTO distributor My Datacet installed and commissioned the system, consisting of 111 XS4 stand-alone, wire-free electronic locks fitted to guest rooms and other access points around the property.

All of the access points are networked and interfaced with SALTO’s SVN Virtual Network software along with be joined by two contactless wall readers and a key card programmer.

"Although it did prove quite a complicated project due to very high standards of installation and finish required, we relished the challenge,” said Ivan Khong of My Datacet. “Access to doors around the resort is now controlled via logo-printed Mifare smart cards for guests and electronic key fobs for staff. These are allied to SALTO’s XS4 locks in a contemporary black finish that now control each door.

“Each lock has its own battery power source and built-in card reader which identifies the user, whether it is a guest’s card or a staff member’s key fob, interrogates their access rights and then either opens the lock or refuses entry. This provides The Club at The Saujana with the control they need yet gives them the flexibility to easily grow the system to meet their ongoing security requirements.”

And officials have been pleased with the system.

“The security of our guests is paramount,” said Tim Bilfinger, manager of the resort. “As part of the remodeling of the resort, we were keen to move with the times and wanted to upgrade to something more state-of-the-art.

“While looking at ways of doing this, we realized that a whole host of issues that had previously been of concern to us, such as the need for greater guest security and the monitoring of staff movement, could easily be addressed with the latest in wireless access control systems. We chose SALTO because their solution offered us all this and a great deal more. They also had a very proactive attitude toward all our various requests.”

A key aspect of security at the resort is the ever-changing nature of the guests and the constant opening of doors. With the SALTO technology, the system is networked to the resort computer, allowing complete control without a Wi-Fi infrastructure or hard wiring.

The contactless card and lock both use read/write technology for two-way communication. Along with normal access control, the technology creates an audit trail to see who accessed a room and when.

“And now that it’s installed and in every day use, we’re finding two features of the system particularly useful,” Bilfinger said. “This is the ability to track entries to individual rooms via the audit trail and the fact that there is no need to replace locks and keys if a guest loses their card or a staff member loses their key fob -- we can delete it from the system simply and quickly.”