Metalcraft ID Tags and Labels: Redefining a Reputation

What does a nameplate and label company know about RFID anyway? Well, a lot actually and it’s time we make the industry take note of it. Unfortunately, it looks like we may have our work cut out for us in order to bump out some of the “traditional” RFID companies. Metalcraft is known for our nameplates and labels first and our technology expertise (i.e. RFID) second. Two things happened recently that made me more acutely aware of this. First, I was at an industry conference where I heard that a large customer who we had been trying to work with had done an RFID installation with an integrator who we had contacted, but ultimately used tags from a competitor. They had never actually seen or tested our tags. Supposedly the competitor’s tags are reading fine; however, they are not adhering very well to the asset they are supposed to be tracking. Perhaps this application would have been better suited to a company with expertise in both RFID performance and actual tag construction and superior adhesive knowledge.

The other example was feedback received from a customer where we did actually receive the order, but they didn’t initially think that our tag would perform as well or better than the competition. It came as no surprise to us when it did – so why did it surprise them? Our competitors are RFID companies while we are a label company with RFID products – or at least that is how we are seen by some. In some ways it’s almost as though our long history of providing durable nameplates and labels works against us. But it shouldn’t – we should be able to use this even more to our advantage. We have more experience with printing, materials and adhesives than our RFID only competitors. And really, what good are tags that read if they fall off what they are supposed to be tracking in the first place?

We realize the need to update our image and really work at being viewed as more of a technology company and we are doing just that. Steve mentioned in a recent call we are updating our image including taking the ID PLATES AND LABELS out of our logo. We realize we are so much more than that and it’s time to be recognized as such. Developing universalrfid.com is another step in building our image. Just to be clear we are very proud of our long-standing reputation in the identification products industry for having durable, reliable products – we just want more. We want people to see that we bring both the RFID knowledge to make sure the product will function in the application and the tag knowledge to make sure the product will last to the table – giving customers the best of both worlds.