Industrial manufacturing requirements for indelible direct part marking containing machine vision codes are growing exponentially. Direct part marking enables tracking a product from the time of manufacturing until the end of its useful life. This demand is driven by the increasing requirements for component traceability and product unique identification (UID). Post 9/11, manufacturers are implementing strategies to establish traceability and thwart product tampering and counterfeiting. The U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) has MIL-STD-130M as the standard practice on military property. Beyond DoD military requirements, manufacturers of commercial industrial products ranging from automotive, packaging, pharmaceutical, electronic, and consumer goods are aggressively adopting similar standards.
Direct part marking containing unique identification information necessitates digital process technology such as inkjet, dot peen, and laser marking.Machine-readable (vision) codes are coded information that can be interpreted through the use of optical scanners or cameras.