Hi all,
I work for a valve manufacturing company and we are looking to speed up our data tag (nameplate) creation process. Currently we use a mechanical gravograph engraver which is very time consuming and uses very cumbersome proprietary software. We are looking to shift our process to a laser engraver that is capable of using data from withing our ERP system to populate the tags. Ideally we would like to be able to 'print' directly from our ERP system (Microsoft Dynamics Nav). We use approximately 12000 1.75" H x 4.5" W x 0.017" Thick stainless steel tags per year. These are typical data tags that hold information about the valve (materials of construction, serial number, order number etc).
You'll have to forgive me I'm very green when it comes to what is out there and which machine would be best suited for this application. I've reached out to a few companies (trotec, epilog, gravograph) so far looking for quotes and what they have to offer but I'm hoping to get some un-biased advice from some users of these machines. Any advice you guys can offer would be very helpful!
Thanks!
Eric