Case Histories of Aimarket

Unique Fastener Travels Northeast To Help Solve AV Theft Problem

Rochester Institute Of Technology is an internationally recognized leader in technology and professional education. Ironically fifty years ago when this particular writer dreamed of becoming a Hollywood Cinematographer, the first school I considered was R.I.T., because of its well-known credentials and track record in photographic technology. Yours truly’s career took a slightly different direction - as careers often do, and instead this correspondent stayed in his native Boston and became a trade magazine editorial writer. It is not surprising, considering the Rochester historical environment, that the long list of RIT graduates (90,000 graduates from 90 different countries) includes: an Eastman Kodak CEO, an Associated Press CEO and senior executives at blue chip companies such as Motorola, Toyota and ESPN – even a Pulitzer Prize winner.

The video or computer connected projector, an important classroom tool in today’s digital age, is utilized by practically all R.I. T. faculty members. The school owns and maintains over 200 of these valuable aids, provided through the university’s Educational Technology Center. The projectors are installed to ceiling mounts in classrooms and lecture halls throughout the campus. About two and half years ago, ten of the expensive projectors were stolen during a six-month period. The total loss due to this thievery was in excess of $50,000.00, not counting disruption. The actual method used by the thieves had been to bring in their own tools and remove the threaded fasteners connecting projectors to ceiling mounts. Everyone directly touched by the criminal activity and the university officials were dismayed and resolved to initiate security measures such that it would not continue. Bob Bancroft is Senior Engineer for Display Systems Technology at The Educational Technology Center and the projectors fall under his area of responsibility. Bancroft investigated in depth and finally found a potential solution on the Internet. He searched and found a unique tamper-proof fastener by name of Keyed-lok®. Bob contacted Richard Campbell; President of Phoenix, Arizona based Bryce Fastener, the manufacturer of Keyed-lok®. These patented screws feature a lock “keyway” A new socket screw being introduced to industrial markets features different, randomly selected, privately exclusive socket geometry for every purchaser. Keyed-lok® is the name given to the patented new product by the manufacturer, Bryce Fastener Manufacturing, Inc. of Gilbert, AZ.

Keyed-lok® screws feature a lock “keyway” forged into the head. Millions of variations are randomly available on each customer order, giving each Keyed-lok® user a private or exclusive fastener. Each keyway is licensed to a customer. Some samples were produced and tested for the application. Now all of the projector installations have been changed over to use the tamper-proof fasteners and best of all, since that time, no more projectors have been stolen. Bob Bancroft mentioned in a recent interview. “The thieves are not going to remove these screws without an electric saw and I believe that would be a hard way to go because of the case-hardened materials. Obviously they don’t want to damage the projectors because their goal is to sell them or use them.”

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