Good morning,
Our raw materials come in the form of long steel bars, rods, and sheets. I am interested in printing labels for raw materials. Currently, our process is to physically write the lot number on the material with a sharpie. I would rather print a label (eventually with barcodes) and attach it to the material. Logistically, we are concerned that the label can easily fall off of the raw material. How do other manufacturers label raw materials in an indelible way?
Thanks for your time!
Nate
At my last job we used just standard labels purchased from ULine to apply to our sheets. Even when the sheets were a little oily, they still stuck.
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Had to google indelible lol, that was a new word for me.
We did something for a rentable product of ours which is basically an aluminum rod. So not steel and not raw material but maybe close enough?
Basically used these labels to print barcodes Brady Part: THT-17-413-3 | 104175 | 3" Core Matte Silver Polyester with Acrylic Adhesive Labels | BradyID.com
And then this tape wrapped around the rod over the barcode Shurtape® A & E J-Lar Gel Repair Tape from Rose Brand
Worked pretty well for us.
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We put the label in a plastic sleeve then attach it to the part (or bin or rack) with magnets. But, we still hand write the part number and lot number on the part with a paint pen, just to be sure.
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FUNNY STORY TIME:…
Once upon a time, in the land of Romoland, (yes, this is a real place… Google it!) I was involved in a project where we had to have “special labels” that could withstand oil, gas, and water without being damaged… they had to have a 10 year lifespan… I searched and found a special inkless label that met all our needs… we purchased the special printer and labels, and tested… sure enough, you could print out the labels and pour gasoline, water and oil, and the “ink” stayed put… the “paper” was impervious… it worked great! These “Labels” were more like a toe tag, in that they were a 3x5 card with a hole in one end.
So… during the manufacturing process, one of the first steps was to affix the label with wire to the part, so it could follow along with the part through the manufacturing process. All was good and rosey in Romoland!
UNTIL
The parts finished the last step…. they went into a thermal shock oven for testing. Imagine the site when they opened the oven, only to find all 20 parts with 20 completely BLACK TAGS… The “Thermal Label” did its job. Nothing was legible on the label. 100% of the lot was missing 100% of the tracking information that we needed to call the parts “good”.
Everyone Laughed… All the way from the President (who was very involved in the choices made) down to the QA team and even the customer Source inspector. Nobody ever said that the label had to withstand temperature.
Lesson Learned: Remove the label before putting the parts into the oven.
END of Story Time!
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Don’t overthink it.
How many parts or types of parts is this?
You may want to just keep using the sharpie, and label the location where you store it.
—
Making a lot of unspoken assumptions in my head 
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Oh I am overthinking it alright! I am looking at raw materials including:
- Pallet sized boxes of raw castings (only need to label the box)
- Flat sheets of metal on pallets, or on edge
- Long Bar Stock (round, square, tube)
- Wooden Pallets with walls full of parts from outside vendors. We need to label the pallet and the materials inside, though not always individually.
The raw stock can have mill scale, light surface rust, other oxide layers, grease, dirt, oil, metal shavings, and cutting fluids on them. Honestly, the marker method usually works really well, but we can’t draw a barcode by hand (yet). I like attaching with magnets, or permanent marking right on the part. I also like attaching a durable label with wire. These are all great ideas. Thanks everyone!