When you’re leaving the grocery store with your arms loaded with groceries, you don’t think twice about the door. When you approach, it glides open and then automatically glides shut after you safely pass through.
Over 50 billion times a year in the United States, in hotels, hospitals, shopping malls, senior living facilities, universities and tens of thousands of other enterprises, an automatic door opens and closes. It happens so many times in our daily lives that we’ve come to take it for granted. They’re a convenience for some of us, but for people living with physical challenges they’re a necessity. Either way, we probably don’t stop to think about how much technology goes into the inner workings of these doors and how the stringent safety standards and rigorous inspection schedules that apply to these mechanisms help protect us and our families.