Program for Molding Bar Codes Into Plastic Earns Certifications

ICS Laser Technologies Inc. (ICS Laser), located in Oldcastle, Ontario, is a service provider to the tool, mold and die industries providing laser texturing, laser engraving, full color mold plaques and “BarCodes in Plastic,” which has passed to attain certification for both ISO/IEC TR 29158 & AIM DPM-1-2006 Certification Standards for Direct-Part-Marks. The company says that scan capture times were clocked from 58–62 milliseconds, and repeatability was guaranteed across a test sample lot of 10 identical parts.

The third-party study, conducted by Keyence Canada, is now complete. ICS Laser says that this program, originally launched at NPE2015, is continuing to gain acceptance in the plastics industry. Molding DataMatrix codes directly into plastic injected molded parts is eliminating the repeating costs of paper labels, printers, labor considerations and so on. ICS Laser says that repeat and new customers are seeking this program to increase efficiencies in the areas of poke yoke, part-color differentiation, left/right part differentiation, links to online information and other proprietary reasons such as part numbers and so on. Successful implementations to date include code encryption onto 1) the ends of ejector pins 2) molding surfaces 3) inserts 4) quick interchangeable inserts.