Takeda Pharmaceuticals Knows Early Planning is Crucial to Master Key Design

In October, 2006, the doors of the Takeda Pharmaceuticals new home office were officially opened. The two five-story steel and glass office buildings include a conference/training facility, cafeteria, general store, fitness center and a 5,300 square-foot remote delivery facility.

Takeda purchased 70 acres at the northwest corner of the I-94 and Lake Cook Road intersection in Deerfield, IL, in December 2002. Ultimately, the 1.2 million square-foot campus will accommodate five office buildings. Marc Fidanza, Takeda’s Director of Security, contacted Anderson Lock’s Jim Walsh very early in the planning stages of the two new buildings. Marc and Jim met with architects to assure that their high security master key system would not only meet the needs of these buildings, but that it could also be expanded to accommodate three future buildings. Anderson Lock creates a new master key system solution for each customer based on the number and location of doors, the way people flow through the building and other factors. Because the Takeda buildings were still under construction, blueprints were used to create a design which both allows and restricts access. Because of numeric limitations, a key code system can only be expanded if expansion is “built-in” from the beginning. 

Takeda specified high security patent-protected lock cylinders which 1) maximize the security of individual locks, 2) minimize the cost of maintaining access control over a long period of time, and 3) provide a framework for key management. Anderson Lock represents Schlage Primus, Primus Everest, Medeco, and Sargent Signature patent-protected key systems.

Scott Heier, one of the Anderson Lock technicians who spent several days installing hundreds of cores, said this system “was all set up and done the way it should be with high security locks and key control.”

With high security locks, end users know definitely how many individual keys have been cut for each system. After a patent-protected system is established, customers are required to provide documentation confirming that the person requesting to have keys cut is in fact authorized to order them, protecting against unauthorized duplication. 

Takeda’s master key system included specifications for electronic hardware with audit trail capabilities for some doors, so Jim also met with Takeda’s card access supplier.

Marc praised Jim’s work, saying that Takeda was “very appreciative of the Anderson Lock leadership as we developed guidelines for our high security key system, which is capable of growing with us. We have a very good design and keying plan. We also engaged Anderson Lock for the installation of cylinders.” He said Anderson Lock is “very customer-service-focused and we are very satisfied with the work overall.”

2010 Update: This year Takeda opened Building Number 3, which was seamlessly tied into the original Master Key System, due to proper planning when the original system was designed. Anderson Lock met with the owners and the general contractor to schedule all of the new doors, and performed the installation of 700 new cores.