Almost every product we see today in the food or manufacturing industry has a code on it. Whether it’s our favourite beverage or a soft drink that you have tried for the first time, or a vehicle spare part that you are exploring to purchase, the process of laser engraving QR codes or laser marking barcode and serial numbers on all kinds of products is easy to explore. Although it may seem like a fancy addition to the technical design of these products, the presence of these codes is mandatory for more technical reasons than just a creative outlook.
In fact, the presence of the process of laser engraving QR codes and laser marking barcodes on all kinds of items, from clothes to accessories and technical products, makes accessing, tracking, and analyzing the manufacturing and supply of these items easier. Besides, with every product being manufactured in thousands of quantities every day in the respective industries, there has to be a logical way to keep track of the product/item number and its availability, right? While the earlier manufacturing industries managed the tracking and quantity analyzing of different kinds of products in more complicated ways, the innovation of laser technology and its usage for laser engraving QR codes, barcodes, and serial numbers have made such processes a lot easier and longer-lasting.
After all, when a laser engraving code is present on a piece of cloth of a metal-based machine, you can easily expect that code to stay at its place even after years of usage of the products. Yes, that’s how reliable and longer-lasting the laser technology has become, especially for the maintenance and tracking of the different manufacturing industry processes in today’s advanced world. But, is that all to explore about the laser technology and why it is used to engrave the codes on different products used in our day-to-day lives today? We believe there’s more to explore when it comes to the importance of laser technology for laser marking barcodes and serial numbers. So without further ado, let’s explore more about this process below in detail!
How Common is Laser Marking for Codes?
The usage of laser technology in today’s advanced world is widespread. We can’t miss the importance of this technology as it has made much day-to-day manufacturing and designing processes a lot more reliable, longer-lasting, and convenient. In fact, the usage of laser technology and laser machines has also limited the need for more manual tasks operated through labour service in many ways. That’s probably one of the reasons why we see technology as the advanced way to automatically handle numerous types of tasks on its own.
But when it comes to witnessing the same technology, have you explored laser engraving QR codes and laser marking barcodes or serial numbers as an equally common practise as it is to laser engrave diamonds and metal parts? We’re guessing you have, since these barcodes, serial numbers, and QR codes are widely present on almost every product today.
Speaking of that, every time you visit a grocery store or a shopping mall, you can easily find such unreadable codes for humans on all kinds of products. From bar designs to weird codes that are written in a technical language (hard for us to understand), it’s easy to find such serial numbers and QR codes on every item around us. In fact, these QR codes and serial numbers are often seen to be read and tracked through the computer system while our bill is being processed. As sorted as it sounds here, that is exactly how smooth these codes make it for the computer systems to analyze the tracking from the records of products in the store. In this way, it takes hardly a second or a minute for the system to evaluate what the product is, what is its specifications, price, and batch no.
All in all, thanks to this process is fast and smooth due to these laser engraved QR codes and bar codes, this technology is widely recognized today in all kinds of industries. Mainly, the ease or traceability of the components or any item having such codes ensures the safety and strict management of technical records without human errors.
So if you haven’t yet explored these codes on all kinds of products, it’s time you start paying attention and see how such serial numbers and/or QR codes are present on all kinds of item surfaces, whether it’s metal, cloth, plastic, or alloys. That is also one of the major reasons how the manufacturing and production industries have become more advanced and balanced for producing convincing results in terms of individual and mass production.
Need for Laser Engraving and Marking Technology:
While we’ve already discussed how easily and commonly we can find the processes of laser engraving QR code or laser marking barcodes, is this process really important? There’s no doubt that the manufacturing and production industries have occupied mass production for decades now. Hence, it’s certainly not a new process to be introduced for the growth of different production industries.
However, what made the innovation of laser technology make this process more reliable and accessible for the production industries in today’s world? And is it not possible to achieve convincing production results even without the usage of laser engraving QR codes and laser marking barcodes? The answer to that is NO.
While the process of handling productions would still be possible without the laser engraving and marking technology, it may not be as disciplined and error-free as it is today. Some such examples that can help understand the need for laser engraving and marking technology include:
Mass Production Industries:
This is the type of industry where most of the large batches of products are manufactured. It can include the automotive industry, the medical technology production industry, and even the electronics industry. In such industries, the presence and usage of laser engraving technology are accessed to engrave lines and 2D codes, i.e., serial numbers on the products. Since these industries manufacturing a whopping large amount of products of the same kinds every day, i.e., a single brand of medicine, a single spare part, etc.,
It’s crucial to keep track of their quantity and the number of each product manufactured of the same kind as others. While other tracing methods may help continue this process with decent accuracy, human error is a factor that can’t be avoided in every way. As a result, with the usage of technological advancements and laser engraving QR codes, and laser marking barcodes on such items, it’s easier to avail of highly reliable products and part traceability.
What Do These Codes Say?
Although it’s not easy for a random person to read these barcodes and QR codes engraved on the mass production items nowadays, you can still understand what they refer to once they are read by the computer systems. This includes data about the product/specific item that helps access the details of that one item only. This data can be:
- Data matrix code or barcode
- Parts/properties details
- Production data
- Batch number
- Price or value of the product
- Shapes
- Sizes
- Materials used
- Type/Category of the product
- And much more.
With the help of laser engraving QR codes and laser marking barcodes on any kind of product sold or distributed in the market, it can be easier to ensure that these codes and the details of that specific product are accessible and simple to read for the electronic devices and professionals in-person.
Its Importance: Do You Really Need It?
Ideal Materials for Laser Marking of Codes:
While we have seen all kinds of products have marked codes and serial numbers on them, there are a few limitations of products that can be easily marked with these machines. Moreover, since the laser technology and the heat produced by it can often damage the surface or ingredients of a product within, it’s crucial to use items that can handle laser engraving QR code and laser marking barcode without facing any changes or harmful effects on the product itself. For this, the ideal materials are:
- stainless steel, alloyed steels
- aluminium, anodized aluminum
- titanium, titanium alloys
- brass
- copper, other precious metals
- coated metals
and some types of plastics e.g.
- PA, PC, PE, PET, PMMA
- silicone or many other plastics
Since both lasers marking barcode and laser engraving QR codes is a slightly different process from one another, identification of which process should be practiced depends on the type of material and what can last longer on the product even after multiple usages.
What Makes it a Reliable Modern-Day Innovation?
As mentioned earlier, there are always many other options of marking and engraving QR codes and barcodes/serial numbers on different items manufactured nowadays. However, when it comes to choosing a longer-lasting, high-quality, and damage-free method of engraving and marking bookmark maker with such codes that can help in better identification of the product during distribution, selling, and usage of the product afterward, the laser technology is the most reliable. Some of the major characteristics of laser technology and why it makes an ideal barcode, serial number, and QR code marking option include:
- Permanent marking on various or all kinds of products
- Flexible, dynamic data can be marked; adding more creativity and reading ease for humans and machines
- Cost-efficient production – so you can achieve mass production engraving and marking tasks with just a few machines without the need for labor help for each process.
- Laser marking in seconds for more throughput and time-saving production
- Perfect marking results with a quality that remains the same
- Integration into production lines without affecting or harming the production of the product
- Non-contact and process-safe material processing that ensures user safety of the product after the usage of laser
- Robust and durable, ensuring that it never gets erased from the product
Conclusion:
With so many benefits being offered with the simple presence of modern-day laser technology and laser engraving QR code, serial numbers, and barcodes on the items manufactured today, it’s certainly a great code marking upgrade as compared to the unauthentic and temporary methods. What are your thoughts on this?