Amityville lock maker markets new product nationwide

Amityville-based Napco Security Technologies Inc., an intrusion-alert system maker, said it has expanded nationwide in marketing a new product, the Networx Wireless Locking System.

The new system evolved from a legacy, hard-wired Napco Security product, the Trilogy line of push-button and card-reading locks, which are installed in self-contained and stand-alone electronic door lines.

While it operates its corporate headquarters, warehouse and some production in Amityville, Napco has primarily made its products in the Dominican Republic since 2009, shipping finished wares to the U.S. for distribution worldwide, the company said in SEC filings. The new Networx system is made in the company's factory in a free-trade zone in San Cristobal, near Santo Domingo, in the Dominican Republic, Napco said.

Napco said, in a Tuesday news release, that it has gathered customer feedback from installations in the Carolinas,  Florida and California,

The company said it has heard from end-users including a school dormitory and a large credit union, from U.S. locations including Florida, North Carolina, South Carolina, Texas and California.

"The advantage for end-users with Networx is that with a press of a button from a central point, college campuses, health-care institutions and businesses remotely control a full or partial global lockdown or global unlock command, to rapidly secure or evacuate its facility the moment a threat arises," Napco said. The systems can be installed without wiring individual doors, the company said.

Napco chairman and chief executive Richard Soloway said in a prepared statement, that the national response thus far has been positive, both for retrofitting and new installations. "We are very pleased with adoption of Networx so far, just one of our new products designed to grow our top line revenue, in order to unleash the gross profit leverage of our Dominican factory's relatively fixed cost structure," Soloway said.

Napco bought Marks USA, a neighboring Amityville lockmaking company, in 2008 and moved its 100 jobs and manufacturing operations to the Dominican Republic the following year.

In a 2008 interview after Napco bought Marks USA for $25 million from owner George Marks, Soloway told Newsday that the purchase was "a perfect fit." He said then that Napco would expand its 90,000-square-foot facility in Amityville to accommodate Marks USA and its 100 workers. However Napco did not expand its Amityville plant, keeping it at 90,000 square feet, and sent Marks USA production to its 167,000 square foot Dominican plant.

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