How, the buyer on the other end of the phone asked, do you label silicone? The Egypt based electrical machinery and equipment manufacturer had been referred to us by their international sister companies—OEMs we had already helped with this non-stick silicone surface conundrum!
How Do You Label Non-Stick Silicone Surfaces?
Have you ever tried to get a barcode label to stick to a non-stick surface? Labeling silicone can be tricky because of silicone’s low surface energy. The lower the surface energy, the tougher it is for adhesives to stick to it.
Many purchasing agents who come to us desperately searching for asset labels that won’t fall off their silicone products are frustrated—all they want to do is track inventory, but this pesky issue of un-stickability is holding up their work! It’s that overwhelming frustration from our clients that originally led Electronic Imaging Materials’ R & D team to develop labels for silicone surfaces in the first place.
Labels that Stick to Liquid Silicone Rubber
Our manufacturing client creates a wide variety of mechatronic components. Concentrated in the auto industry, their products include electronic and electro-mechanical devices, LED lighting systems, power distribution parts, and sensors, to name a few!
Silicone is used in several of their products, particularly in their automotive lighting solutions and sensor technologies. They utilize moldable optical silicone in their LED lighting systems to enhance light transmission and durability. Additionally, they employ liquid silicone rubber (LSR) molding in various components to provide flexibility and resilience…and all those components need to be tracked and accounted for!
Their buyer thought they faced an unsolvable challenge in tracking this unique inventory. How can you create a permanent bond on silicone objects essentially designed to repel anything from sticking to them? Fortunately, their sister company stepped in with a referral to The Label Experts!
Here’s where you might think, referral = instant sale, right? But that’s not how we, or our client, do business! Although they were excited about our silicone labels, the buyer asked us to go through their full vetting process before committing to an order. Here at EIM, we LOVE customers who want to test labels before buying them. As a made-to-order label provider, testing is the best way for us to narrow down the perfect combo of materials for individual clients! We airmailed several SiliCodeTM solutions to them and they began testing, running the labels we sent through every stage of their process.
Ultimately, we were able to provide them with a custom design that solved their silicone situation. At the end of the day, sometimes it takes a specialized label to ensure your silicone products have proper markings and tracking data!
Stumped By Non-Stick, Silicone Surfaces? Give The Label Experts A Call!
Silicone or not, whatever type of low surface energy item you need to label, reach out to The Label Experts! We are ready to help you find—or make!—a label that will stick to non-stick surfaces.
