Organization chart & access control: Dény Security’s historic cylinder and key enter a new era

Among them is its historic key hierarchy system, developed by its founder Charles Dény, intended to create a secure solution with safety locks. Marketed since the beginnings of the company, the cylinder and its Dény key dedicated to high security organization charts quickly became essential and continue more than 130 years later to equip many sensitive, isolated or difficult sites (nuclear power plants, refineries, shelters, water services, industrial sites, etc.).

Continuing the investments undertaken since 2018 to develop its best-seller in order to adapt it to market needs and new technologies, DENY SECURITY is continuing its policy of continuous improvement. Today, for the first time in the history of this range, DENY SECURITY is fundamentally transforming its flagship cylinder in order to further improve its level of security and optimize its production method.

SIS* system: increase the safety level of the cylinder

Initiated in 2018 through a 1^er investment of €550.000 and in testing since September 2021, the *Standardized Stainless Steel Skeleton system aims to increase the resistance to picking of the Dény cylinder. To do this, DENY SECURITY has added additional controls and new, more precise kinematics to the safety levers and has standardized the production of certain parts previously adjusted by hand.

Thus, for the manufacture of the cylinder safety levers, DENY SECURITY used the MIM (Metal Injection Molding) process. Based on metal powder and injection molding technology, this process was the only one to meet the technical requirements of their design. Indeed, it has the advantage of producing complex shapes with excellent surface finish, precise dimensional tolerances and high mechanical properties. As for the assembly of the keys, this has been carried out since July 2021 using a laser welding machine which allows the keys to be assembled automatically in different positions depending on the variation of the cylinder.

Among the modifications made by DÉNY SECURITY in the design of the new Dény cylinder, include the evolution of the shape of the three safety levers, the addition of specific pins on the 2^rd and 3^rd levers as well as the addition of guide grooves on the 1st and 2nd. These developments allow it to have a level of security consistent with the A2P standard.

While remaining compatible with existing keys and keyrings, the new Dény cylinders benefit from unrivaled quality, reliability and durability.

A new patent for long-term protection of the Dény key

In order to ensure the protection of its customers' organizational charts for years to come, DENY SECURITY has filed a new patent which protects the future Dény key against legal copying. For this, the cylinder and key assembly combines two mechanical elements:

• a shutter located at the entrance to the cylinder incorporating a spring which keeps it closed,
• a specific shape of the nose of the key which allows the shutter to be activated and entry into the cylinder.

Integrated into the SIS system, this new technology protects the future key against copying until 2039.

One key to replace them all

The implementation of the SIS system absolutely required creating a new key incorporating the new patent and so that it would work perfectly with the new Dény cylinder.

Other objectives: make the size of the keys more precise in association with MIM parts, standardize the current blanks of which too many variants existed (10 models patented until 2026), and finally ensure its compatibility with all the cylinders already installed. Now reduced to 4 patented blanks until 2039 (round rod, cross rod, rods and bits of different lengths), the new Dény key has a ring with a modernized design, both more robust and more comfortable to hold . It will be rolled out gradually depending on the exhaustion of stocks of old models.

A state-of-the-art robot for automated key production

A logical continuation of the installation of the laser welding machine dedicated to the manufacture of safety levers for the Dény cylinder, the investment in a key cutting robot was a natural choice in order to automate and reduce previously manual operations. , carried out on different stations, and thus streamline the process and make it more flexible.

The result of an investment of €350.000, this new machine at the cutting edge of technology, installed last June and tested until the end of 2023, has a robotic arm armed with 2 grippers which is at the center operations (marking, machining, cleaning, finishing, sorting). Working independently on 300 keys, it allows a new patented key to be completely cut in 90 seconds (vs. 6 minutes before) on a single workstation. Another advantage of this cutting robot called Deylta, the possibility of making chamfers for a smoother passage of the key and of linking the coding directly to the flowchart service without going through paper.

With a total amount of €1 million, these investments in the SIS system, the new patent, the new key and the cutting robot illustrate DENY SECURITY's desire to improve the performance of its historic cylinder and to perpetuate it for the decades to come. The complete deployment of the assembly and the launch of volume production is planned for January 2024.