Matthews Celebrates 150 Years of Advancing the Science of Marking Identification

Company Backgrounder
From branding irons to lasers, Matthews International has come a long way since John D. Matthews founded the company in 1850. Keeping up with the newest technology, while continuing to produce its tried and true products, has earned Matthews recognition for providing high quality solutions for all marking, coding and identification. From simple marking devices to sophisticated, computer-driven systems, Matthews offers the most comprehensive range of marking technologies, including etching, contact printing, ink-jet printing, indenting and embossing, laser marking and printing inks.

The company thus serves the packaging, electronics, wood products, beverage and food, plastics, ceramic, automotive, metal, glass and textile industries who produce a broad range of industrial and consumer products-literally any product or component that needs to be marked in any way.

Etching
Matthews Airgrit® Etching product line, provides a permanent, distinctive mark for promoting by brand recognition, date and batch codes, traceability, inspection and instructional marking. The Airgrit Etching technology is a stress-free marking process that does not distort or fracture delicate or thin-walled parts.

Airgrit systems can economically and permanently mark glass, metal, ceramics, plastics and other fragile materials with hard, anodized or highly polished surfaces. Widely used in the automotive, glass and plastics industries, several models are available for all process line configurations, including bench top, floor and hand-held systems along with many options and accessories. Matthews engraved rubber masks are so intricate, they can reproduce an etched thumbprint in perfect detail.

Contact Printing
Matthews Print-A-Mark® contact printers use a wide variety of lead-free, pigmented inks and provide quality printing of alphanumeric text and graphics with superior color contrast. Printing surfaces include steel, alloys, plastics, rubber, glass and wood. No special tools are required to operate Matthews offset printers and message changeover is fast and easy.

Matthews offers a wide variety of standard Print-A-Mark offset printers and direct printers, as well as custom engineered contact printing solutions. More economical contact printing line printing choices include Dry Dot™ Inspection Marking Systems for simple quality assurance applications, Stripe-It™ Marking for stripe identification, and the Contact Coder series for a variety of automotive inspection and packaging applications. Matthews offset printers permit economical marking with over 2 million 3/8" (9.5 mm) high characters per quart of ink.

Ink-Jet Printing
Matthews Jet-A-Mark® ink-jet marking systems provide customers with unlimited message formats including graphics, text, date and batch codes in a variety of font styles and sizes to complement packages and products. Matthews ink-jet technologies ensure superior marks with unmatched printing flexibility on wood, drywall, textiles, galvanized steel, corrugated cartons, shrink wrap, plastics, metals and more. System choices include large character Drop-on-Demand™ valve systems, high-resolution Impulse systems and Continuous Ink-Jet systems.

Matthews also offers solutions for small character marking applications in the food, beverage, pharmaceutical, metal, wire, plastic and cable industries. Based on application specifications, there are many ink-jet technologies to choose from, such as continuous, impulse, or drop-on-demand. Each of these produces fast, reliable coding of expiration dates, multiple time and date formats, batch codes and logos on a wide range of products regardless of shape or texture. Matthews formulates a variety of 100% water-based inks with zero VOCs for a safer, cleaner environment.

Indenting
Matthews sells a wide range of Indent-A-Mark® products for indenting and embossing. These range from heavy duty, production line indenting machines and programmable stylus markers to tool steel hand stamps for marking metal, automotive and machined parts. Steel dies can be manufactured with intricate detail for brand recognition marking. Type can also be used to indent chipboard and foils, as well as brand codes in molded plastics and vinyls. Indenting technology is useful for products which require long production runs, precise mark registration, and controlled marking. Indenting can be achieved as part of the production process or as a separate operation. Hand indenting is appropriate for permanent indenting applications at remote locations, or those with low production runs where the manufacturing process or shape does not allow for an automated indenting system. Matthews indenting systems are durable enough to produce up to 1 million marks with a single marking die.

Laser Marking
Matthews laser marking gives a flexible and economic solution to a wide variety of standard marking requirements. These systems perform consistent and permanent marking with no need for expensive consumables and minimal maintenance. Offering high speed coding of several lines of text, Matthews systems match the performance requirements of the world's fastest production lines. They produce superior quality marks for precision bar codes, texts and identification marks, including complex logos on almost any material. The consistent and permanent marking performed by Matthews laser equipment means that every item will be marked to the same degree of high quality, providing accurate identification for the lifetime of the product.

Matthews CO2 and YAG systems can mark static products or on-the-fly items in fast production lines.

Inks
Matthews was the first U.S. based manufacturer of industrial printing inks to obtain ISO 9001 registration, the most comprehensive of the ISO standards covering the design, manufacturing and service of a company's product. This means that every step in the ink manufacturing process has built-in quality standards. All inks are tested during production to maintain these standards. Samples of each batch are date tested during production and retained for periodic analysis as part of Matthews' quality assurance standards.

In addition to ink recommendations, Matthews' highly skilled, fully trained staff can provide information and advice on environmental, transportation, storage and safety matters.

For further information, contact Matthews International Corporation, Marking Products Division, 6515 Penn Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA 15206. Telephone: 412-665-2500. Fax: 412-365-2042. Internet: www.matthewsmarking.com