Sometimes, pushing the designer envelope doesn’t mean making things bigger and more complex. Sometimes, there’s more in the simplicity of less. Lippert Components, Inc., a leading manufacturer and supplier of RV entry, ramp and baggage doors, has embraced this minimalist philosophy with their new Keyed Alike lock system, a process that allows for every lock in an RV to be opened using a single key.                   

With almost no impact on the manufacturers’ production lines and a significant financial and security benefit to dealers and end users, LCI® is making strides to build the Keyed Alike program into a new RV industry standard.

Until now, virtually every RVer has been forced to annoyingly lug around clanking bundles of keys for every lock on their rig or fork up an extra $300- $400 to replace all of their factory standard locks. This is no longer the case. The Keyed Alike system embraces the single-key program at an OEM level for a fraction of what it currently costs consumers. 

“The willingness of an RV customer to spend that kind of money, to achieve what an OEM can achieve for a fraction of the cost, is what really drives product,” explained Lippert Sales Manager, Scott McKinnon. For manufacturers that embrace the Keyed Alike program, the sizes and variations of locks, along with the quantity of locks that one key can unlock, is almost limitless. This allows a mix and match of locks on any RV and in any quantity to have the convenience of a single key.

With just over 20 years of RV industry experience under his belt, McKinnon has had a front row seat to the evolution of RV lock systems. “The first set of RVs had knobs on the doors, like you’d see in a home,” recalled McKinnon. “Then it evolved into an RV handle which is a really cost-effective way to lock an RV, but not necessarily the best way to make each coach individually secure.”