Direct Part Marking: Meaning, Methods and Benefits

Direct Part Marking is a method of marking parts permanently with the help of barcode technology. Direct Part Marking helps in tracking the parts through their entire life cycle. However, whether the marking on a part will last a lifetime depends largely on the part itself.  For instance, the parts used in the Aerospace Industry last as long as 30 years while the parts used in the computer industry last about a few years.

Applications of Direct Part Marking Methods

The process of Direct Part Marking is predominately used by electronic, aerospace and automotive manufactures to ensure reliable traceability of their parts and products in the long run. Direct Part Marking helps for data logging for safety, conforming to various safety regulatory requirements and also in warranty issues.

Direct Part Marking and Department of Defense

As per the mandate issued by the United States Department of Defense, all tangible assets must have a physical mark on them in order to be compliant to the Item Unique Identification standards.

Advantages of Direct Part Marking Methods

Direct Part Marking entails numerous advantages for product manufactures that are essentially dependent on ensuring lifetime traceability of their product items for various purposes. Especially, it helps in tracking defense related items starting from their date of manufacturing through their entire life cycle. There are many benefits that make the use of direct part marking a bare essential amongst many manufactures around the world.

• The favorable economics of high-performance, lightweight engineering plastics parts replacing traditionally more expensive metal parts
• The indelible, high-resolution alphanumeric and machine vision codes which the direct part marking produces
• The growing requirements for component traceability and product unique identification (UID)

The Most Popular Direct Part Marking Method

Direct part marking is a 2-dimensional barcode which offers lifetime traceability for item components. Usually these codes appear very tiny in the normal vision; however, they contain all the critical information about the items. Since the codes are machine readable, any possible human error is removed. Of many common direct part marking methods available in the industry, Inkjet Part Marking technique is the most popular and is used mostly in the aerospace, electronics, automotive, lumber, home building products, food, medical and packaging industries. As compared to some other means of direct park marking, inkjet part marking offers better resistant for long duration. This marking produces the best quality marks possible on most building products. Aside from the DoD military mandate, manufacturers of many commercial industrial products ranging from automotive, pharmaceutical, and packaging to electronic and consumer goods are now  into implementing Inkjet Part Marking as the best form of Direct Part Method.

Other Direct Part Marking Methods