What drives the specifier?

When I see a very nice sports car, I admire it for its clean lines, its reputed speed and handling capability, and its superb engineering design. That does not, however, mean that I want to own one. I might find out that I can't drive it in the snow, since you can't get chains for those nice, wide, low-profile tires. Or I might find that only one shop in the state can fix it, and the tow charges are hideous. I might also find that it gets lousy gas mileage.

As most of us know from our experience in the industry, buildings, like cars, come in a plethora of individual styles and designs. The customer, or client, often has a say in the building design and very often expresses approval or disapproval of the initial design concept submitted by the architect. Since most clients don't get into the design down to the level of door hardware, it is our job as specifiers, installers and contractors to supply them not only with equipment that is aesthetically pleasing and meets code requirements, but also with hardware that might be used in the future in a different way than supplied.

Because of changes in our society, many buildings are being equipped with integrated access control systems hardware. The installation and use of this type of hardware make it necessary for certain criteria to be met when hardware is initially specified for a building or project. Some things you might want to think about when specifying entry doors and hardware include the following:

* How difficult would it be to install a complete access system by installing electrified hardware where only mechanical hardware had previously been installed? (Snow chains, anyone?)

* How difficult and expensive is it for the client to have the hardware repaired or serviced should the need arise? (Look at that towing charge.)

* Are the installation and service of future access hardware going to require expertise that will cost the client more money and headache than a comparable style? (How much was that new spark plug?)

* Will the client be able to install an access system? I have seen some doors where it was not possible without extensive modifications. (Sorry, that car doesn't have enough ground clearance to get over the curb, sir.)

Having spent the past 10 years in the commercial hardware industry, seven of those years as the president of a lock shop that specializes in access hardware, I can tell you that there are some things that could be done to improve a customer's chances of having a successful access system installed.

Now, I don't want to make any enemies, so I am not going to list the types of doors that get my fur up. I'm sure that a little imagination on anyone's part would yield some types of doors on which you might have a hard time installing hardware. Picture a thick piece of glass with a pull on each side, a pivot on the top and a floor-mounted closer on the bottom, a small bottom rail with a cylinder in it, and nothing but glass on the top and sides as far as the eye can sec. How are you supposed to lock something like that? You could use a floor-mounted shear lock if you're not too concerned with keeping your liability insurance intact. You could replace the doors with new doors that have been factory prepped to accept surface-mounted, top-latch only panic hardware (expensive). You could call in a custom (translation: expensive) frame fabricator to install a custom stainless steel tubular frame completely around the door, so that magnetic locks, shear locks and panic devices will all work with the new header. Or, for you folks that are reading this who actually specify hardware, you could specify all of this in the first place.

Some clients want doors and designs that are different, racy, stylish and new. Some want a dependable, cost-effective, easily retrofitted design that is pleasing to the eye and functional in design for future retrofit and service ability. It is the job of architects and specifiers to give the client a racy, exhilarating building that is pleasing to the eye but still functional and cost-effective. There are some things you can do to improve the system:

* Contact the vendors that want you to specify their hardware. Ask them for specific examples of installations where access control has been successfully utilized in both initial installations and retrofit applications.

* Challenge manufacturers and vendors to come up with solutions for these types of problems. Refuse to use hardware or doors from vendors that do not provide the flexibility that your client might require.

* Make contacts in the after-market installation industry. Talk with locksmiths and access integrators. Pick their brain on what they do and do not like about installing/servicing certain types of hardware.

* Contact after-market modifiers. See if they are doing something with the existing hardware in the marketplace that the manufacturers are not. See if the hardware you want to specify can be re-worked to function electrically. You might be surprised to learn that most hardware can be modified even though it is not necessarily provided in that function by the original manufacturer.

Check out new manufacturers. Up until very recently, for example, if you specified a power transfer hinge, the least amount of wires you could get were four. Now, most people only need power for an electrified lock; this requires only two wires, but everyone still specifies four. Of course, the four wires typically found are very small and do not carry much amperage. They can be broken easily and short out if abused. Several manufacturers have answered this need by providing two-wire hinges that have larger gauge wires, carry more load and can even be used successfully with electric latch retraction panic devices. One of these companies makes hinges that can be repaired, and each hinge comes with a lifetime warranty on the wire. Talk about making your client happy.

Now, if you try to see into the future and try to specify hardware that could be used in the future in an access control scenario, you will probably not have your client calling you and thanking you for your efforts and extolling your virtues. You will, however, have a client that is not running around telling everyone how the building is just so impossible to work with, and thank goodness the new building is being done by someone else. Is this what you would want your client to think and say? I wouldn't.

We can all learn something from other industries. Typically, customer satisfaction, market penetration and business acumen are concepts that cross product category lines. Take a good look at the automotive industry engineers. Some of them have come up with reasonably priced cars that are racy, exciting and luxurious that also perform well. The repair costs on some models are actually very reasonable, and the tow charges are the same as for a mid-sized, cheaper car. The customer/client is happy. He has something he enjoys, something that can be fixed and something that is versatile. And if he really likes the car, he will probably order another one in the future. Wouldn't you like to have the same relationship with your customer/client?