Enright's resettable combo locks
would save $5,000 per district, untold time

Just imagine how frustrating it can be to get a call at 4 p.m. from a contractor needing to get a sample from one of our materials sources for testing. Unfortunately, the location is miles away, and the contractor needs the sample NOW.

ITD District 6 Geologist Shawn Enright was dealing with situations like these multiple times a week. He knew he couldn’t continue making these runs and still do the rest of his job. There simply were not enough hours in the day.

In the many hours Enright and his team spent driving all over creation, Shawn came up with a great idea. He bought resettable combination locks and is placing these locks on the district materials source gates. The idea was to reduce man hours spent driving to and from sites just to simply unlock a gate.

These combination locks all have resettable combinations, which gives us the capability to change the code when a contractor is finished. And if a code has been compromised, we have the ability to change the code with the master key and not have to buy a new lock every time. Each individual lock has its own dynamic code.

Once a contractor is authorized to work in a materials source, the gate combination will be provided to them. In the past, we would have to coordinate a time (if we could), drive to the source, open the gate, ensure the contractor has his own lock to install, lock the gate and leave. Since some sources are over 3.5 hours away, a round trip would consume an entire day just in travel.

By coming up with this Innovative idea, ITD is able to provide better customer service, rapid access in times of emergencies and better time management. Not only are we being more efficient, Enright is saving ITD money. Enright figures that ITD would save at least $5,000 per district, equaling a minimum of $30,000 statewide by implementing these combination locks.

Published 06-29-18