Wood marking decisions drive business results

Choosing the right print technology can make a positive (or negative) impact on your bottom line. The type of technology you use for marking and coding on wood products affects the:

• Speed and efficiency of your marking
• Quality, accuracy and reliability of your marks
• How much ink you use (or waste)
• Labor required for changeovers
• Amount and interval of maintenance required
• Business and supply chain velocity

You need a wood marking solution that delivers proven performance and reliability in the toughest of environments and can easily adapt to new requirements as your operation grows and evolves.

If you are still using contact printing with stamps, stencils or roller coders for wood marking, you are missing out on the clarity, convenience and cost savings of modern inkjet and DOD valvejet printers.

The global leader for wood marking technology

Matthews has a long tradition of offering industrial marking and coding products that are rugged, efficient, and reliable, producing marks of unmatched quality on a wide variety of substrates.

With Matthews DOD valvejet printers, you’ll get consistently clean, legible marks and codes on your wood products, and you’ll reap the business benefits of greater flexibility, reduced costs, and proven reliability – without the maintenance headaches.

Learn how marking equipment upgrades reduce cost in this EWTA Journal cover story.

Durability: Our MPERIA V-Series drop-on-demand (DOD) valvejet printers represent the most robust and versatile inkjet marking technology available on the market today. They have been well proven worldwide to withstand the harsh conditions found in wood milling and production environments.

Quality: Valvejet technology offers clear advantages for wood marking applications. Wood surfaces are often uneven or rough. Because valvejet printheads never make contact with the wood surface, they create clear marks on uneven and porous surfaces. Valves flush automatically, preventing build-up of residue that can cause bad marks.

Efficiency: Valvejet printers use (and waste) less ink than contact printing methods like stamps, stencils and roller coders. DOD valvejet printheads are impervious to dust and dirt, and less ink accumulates on equipment – meaning less cleaning, less labor, and more savings.

Reliability: Matthews V-Series printers are the most reliable wood marking equipment on the market, with features like fast start-up, bulk ink delivery systems, and the ability to achieve over 9 billion firings before tuning is required.

Flexibility: V-Series printers with compact printheads can be mounted over, under and beside lines or on traversing systems to give you ultimate control, even on oddly shaped wood products.

Velocity: Electronic control with MPERIA makes message changeovers and updates a breeze. Your lines move faster and more efficiently because you don’t have to regularly stop production to manually reset messages, clean messy equipment or conduct maintenance.

With a Matthews solution in place, you’ll never need to slow down because your marking system can’t keep up.

Future-proof your wood marking technology

High quality marks ensure accurate identification and proper handling of your product – from manufacturing through final use.

• Product identification
• Internal and external traceability
• Automation and manufacturing processes
• Location and orientation marking
• Defect marking
• Nail pattern marking
• Brand identification
• Barcodes
• Specifications, standards, and structural ratings
• FSC and other certifications

All of these depend on having clear, accurate, and durable marks.

Inks that meet the highest standards

Selecting the right ink is vital to ensuring marks end up in the correct place and stay there for as long as needed. We offer a wide variety of ink types for marking on wood products, and our in-house ink engineering team can create custom ink formulations to meet virtually any requirement.

Printers that work as hard as you do

With all the variations in lumber size and dimensions, not to mention the vast array of engineered wood products on the market today, marking equipment more of often than not needs to be adapted to fit your requirements, and to ensure the long-term reliability you expect.

We’ve seen it all and our engineering experts can customize our products to fit your specifications – not the other way around. From custom kick brackets that can snap out of the way, to traversing systems that move printheads around oddly shaped surfaces to flexible print mounts that can raise and lower print heads to suit varying thicknesses of wood. Bottomline: we create the system that works for your needs.

Take control of your marking and coding operations

Wood coding and marking requires a print controller that puts you in control. Our MPERIA controllers seamlessly integrate with virtually any coding equipment, data file or enterprise system. You can easily manage and control marking at every stage of production. And your production staff only needs to be trained on a single system to start jobs, manage message changeovers, and resolve issues.

With its flexible architecture, MPERIA keeps integration costs down and makes equipment upgrades easy. Unparalleled system performance allows you to expand your marking capability without significant capital expenditures as your production grows. And like our valvejet and inkjet printer technology, it’s built to withstand the harsh milling and manufacturing environments of the wood products industry.