Metalcraft is an international company working with major companies, manufacturers, schools and universities, and governments helping them unleash the power of their data using the most effective tracking technology for the application.
Interview with Julia Deets, Vice President of Marketing and Customer Experience at Metalcraft.
Easy Engineering: What are the main areas of activity of the company?
Julia Deets: Metalcraft has three different divisions specializing in different aspects of identifying and tracking assets. Metalcraft is the parent company where we engineer and manufacture our custom identification products typically with serialized/barcode and/or radio frequency identification (RFID) technology. ARK Business Systems is the software division of Metalcraft and GreyTrunk RFID is the asset tracking software offered. Inlay Innovation is the newest division of Metalcraft. Inlay Innovation provides custom RFID inlay design and manufacturing.
E.E: What’s the news about new products?
J.D: Metalcraft recently introduced Signature™ Printed Nameplates for asset tracking and property identification applications needing a durable metal nameplate with intricate, high-quality four-color processing. Samples are available today via idplate.com.
Signature Nameplates feature a digital printing process directly on the metal using a flatbed inkjet printer. This process provides photographic image quality with precise CMYK color matching printed directly on the metal. Because the color matching system is exact there is no wasting ink or other supplies allowing us to get it quickly to our customers while minimizing waste. In addition, variable information is now available meaning no more static, sequential-only, crash-indented numbers.
E.E: What are the ranges of products?
J.D: Metalcraft produces high-quality, technology-agnostic identification products from custom nameplates digitally printed on aluminum to customized radio frequency identification (RFID) inlays and completely constructed tags.
E.E: At what stage is the market where you are currently active?
J.D: This is difficult to answer because Metalcraft’s products span so many different markets. We have a very diverse customer base. Potential customers include anyone who needs to identify and/or track something. Industries vary from education to military and healthcare to manufacturing.
E.E: What can you tell us about market trends?
J.D: We continue to see a move away from manual methods of asset tracking and more of a move towards methods of automated asset tracking including using both barcode and radio frequency (RFID) technologies to improve overall accuracy and save both time and money. Using automated methods over manual methods increases efficiencies and allows organizations to be more productive and ultimately more profitable.
E.E: What are the most innovative products marketed?
J.D: We have a number of innovative products we’ve developed inhouse including our DuraDestruct RFID Tags. DuraDestruct RFID security tags feature a patented construction, rendering the label useless upon tampering or removal. The specialized construction eliminates transferability of the RFID tag and incorporates two levels of destructibility. If someone attempts to remove the tag, the RFID antenna construction breaks into separate pieces, making the read range of the tag mere inches. If a person tries to reassemble the tag to make it functional, the portion that is still adhered will literally disintegrate if an attempt is made to remove it from the object.
E.E: What estimations do you have for 2023?
J.D: We anticipate continued growth for radio frequency identification (RFID) in more and more industries and applications as the barriers to entry continue to lower and the ROI for more and more applications are shown to have a positive impact on the company and industry.