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That’s not an accident.

Cardiff has quietly become HID’s largest PACS-centric development site. Readers, controllers and IO modules that secure buildings worldwide are designed, tested and validated here. And increasingly, Cardiff’s innovation has become a central part of keeping HID at the forefront of the access control industry.

The site’s recent expansion — 40 new employees, a dedicated biometrics center — reflects its growing importance. But Cardiff’s evolution goes deeper than headcount. What started as pure engineering has transformed into something more comprehensive: a place where customer partnerships are forged, where manufacturing readiness happens alongside design innovation, and where quality isn’t just a checkpoint but a discipline.

This is the story of how Cardiff became a model for how hardware, software and customer collaboration can work in concert.

Responding at Speed

Speed matters in access control. Customer needs don’t wait for long development cycles, and Cardiff has built a reputation for responding fast when opportunities arise.

Take the UK GovPass program. When the government needed support for its national ID credential — similar to PIV cards in the United States — Cardiff moved quickly. The team configured readers to support the credential and got the solution into customers’ hands without the delays that typically accompany government projects.

Or consider Inner Range, a major Australian partner who needed two things: a custom flavor of DESFire (HID’s configurable card technology with its own security parameters) and Signo readers branded with Inner Range’s logo. Cardiff delivered both. It’s the same approach HID takes with Bosch and Honeywell, who also use OEM Signo readers with their own branding. The platform was designed from the start to be flexible.

This agility isn’t accidental — it’s architectural. The flexibility to respond quickly to customer requests was built into how Cardiff operates, from product design to manufacturing processes to quality validation.

From Signo to Linq and Beyond: Building Industry-Leading Solutions

Cardiff is the birthplace of some of HID’s most significant PACS innovations, including Signo, HID’s premium reader line.

Signo readers embody Cardiff's design excellence, balancing multi-technology versatility with mobile-ready capabilities. Right out of the box, these readers support both legacy cards and mobile credentials via NFC and Bluetooth. That flexibility extends to OEM partnerships and custom configurations, making Signo adaptable to diverse deployment scenarios without sacrificing the clean aesthetics that matter in design-conscious environments.

But even the most capable hardware needs configuration. HID Linq addresses a different challenge: configuration complexity. 

Custom reader configurations used to take weeks. Linq puts that control directly in customers’ hands. With Linq, customers configure readers in their own environment, test them, then submit a device configuration ID (DCID) to HID for approval. Once published, they can order that exact configuration or deploy it to additional readers. It’s an Amazon-like experience for access control — customers drive the process, HID ensures quality.

The system serves both end users (who need intuitive security configuration) and distribution partners (who need streamlined ordering). Linq scales customization without chaos.

Officially a Great Place to Work

Cardiff is HID’s first facility to earn the Great Place to Work certification — an independent recognition based entirely on employee feedback. The certification reflects high levels of trust in leadership, employees feeling valued and respected, and teams empowered to innovate and grow. It's validation that the collaborative culture driving Cardiff’s technical achievements is intentional and repeatable.

Evolution of a Facility: Beyond Pure Engineering

Over the last few years, Cardiff has added capabilities, not just capacity.

New Product Introduction creates the infrastructure that turns designs into production reality. When Cardiff develops a new reader or controller, the manufacturing team works in parallel to create test rigs, production fixtures, and bed-of-nails testing setups. Products that can be designed beautifully but can’t be manufactured reliably don’t help anyone. The tight collaboration between hardware design and manufacturing engineering ensures products reach production without compromise.

Quality Assurance operates as an independent function. Rather than having engineers test their own work — a recipe for blind spots — Cardiff maintains a standalone QA department that holds release candidates accountable to a rigorous testing suite. Those tests have evolved over seven years based on market feedback and real-world deployment scenarios. The facility is among HID’s most frequently audited sites and maintains ISO 9001 certification. The result has been a dramatic reduction in field issues compared to a decade ago.

Biometrics is Cardiff’s newest discipline. HID chose Cardiff as its biometrics center for PACS, adding facial, finger and palm and biometric authentication capabilities to the facility’s expertise in hardware, firmware and software. It's a strategic expansion that reflects how access control is evolving beyond cards and credentials.

Still, it’s important to note that Cardiff doesn't work in isolation. The facility collaborates closely with HID teams in Cypress, California; Krakow, Poland; and Chennai, India. That global coordination ensures hardware innovation stays aligned with field requirements across different markets and regulatory environments.

Shaping What Comes Next

The Cardiff expansion continues. There’s some exciting product innovation news coming out shortly (stay tuned!). Biometrics capabilities are deepening. The facility that once focused purely on hardware now represents something broader: a center where physical products, digital tools, manufacturing readiness and customer collaboration all converge.

It’s not just about what Cardiff creates. It’s about how the facility enables HID to respond to what customers need, when they need it, without sacrificing security or quality.

Cardiff stands for engineering excellence, yes, but also the agility to turn opportunity into reality for HID customers and partners around the world.