Steel Industry

In the hot, harsh and dangerous business of metals manufacturing, your equipment and consumables need to be durable, rugged and genuinely long-lasting.

All of these elements create a hostile environment for printed items such as location and tracking tags and labels. When labels or tags are applied prior to the cleaning process, the must be able to withstand the extreme conditions and prolonged exposure to aggressive chemicals.

High-temperature manufacture

The hot-rolling process associated with casting or converting semi-cast products such as slabs, blooms or billets to sheet metals requires traceability of these valuable materials at every stage of the process.

Application environment:

-Hot extruded/hot rolled wire, rods, coils, sheets and reinforcing bars

-High temperatures up to 200°C

-Exposure to oils and abrasives

-Cold-temperature manufacture

-Prior to rolling and/or shaping, steel products are labeled for traceability throughout the production process. Likewise, second-stage products require item-level visibility.

-Although the manufacturing process does not feature extreme temperature conditions, the exposure of materials to dust and dirt is very high. Consequently, labels or tags applied to products need to adhere well and give excellent print quality. They must withstand the conditions of manufacture and remain legible in storage.

Application environment:

-Cold rolled coils, sheets, tubes, and wire

-No extremes of temperature but reliable, legible labels are required

-Prolonged label life for staging, storage, and transit

-Extreme Conditions

The cleaning or “picking” process within steel and metals manufacture requires any surface impurities or oxidisation on rolls, blooms, or billets to be removed. This descaling process is achieved by using acid baths or coarse engineering abrasives. Sometimes this requires the onward use of an oil film to protect against future oxidisation.


All of these elements create a hostile environment for printed items such as location and tracking tags and labels.
When labels or tags are applied before the cleaning process, they must be able to withstand the extreme conditions and prolonged exposure to aggressive chemicals.