PCI-MA Member Spotlight – December 2023
Each month, PCI Mid-Atlantic celebrates a member of our precast community. These companies work collectively to educate stakeholders and specifiers to advance our industry. Associate suppliers and fabricator companies collaborate to produce and build thousands of precast and prestressed concrete bridges, parking structures, and buildings annually.
30 years of Trustworthy Identification
InfoSight is a global leader in identification technology specializing in creating innovative identification solutions for harsh environments, improving safety outcomes, enabling traceability, and adding value for customers. Their equipment and machinery include dedicated 360° support, unparalleled durability, and a commitment to excellence.
Products and Services
The concrete and construction industry has a lot of moving parts. Accurately tracking steel, concrete, and other components through construction is extremely important for managing time and money. Whether you need metal barcode tags or embedded concrete casting identification, InfoSight has you covered.
InfoSight’s industrial tags survive in environments that destroy paper, vinyl, and plastic labels. Their tags, made in the great state of Ohio, survive extreme heat, caustic and acidic immersion, heavy abrasion, and intense weathering caused by oceanic and UV exposure.
Tags can be printed uniquely or uniformly with text, logos, and multiple barcodes. They’re available nicked and notched in varying lengths for easy break-off. InfoSight also offers a wide variety of attachment options to fit your application.
Case Study: Finfrock realizes Return on Investment by Using InfoSight Laser Printers and Metal Barcode Tags
Finfrock is a central Florida-based design-build company that provides value by delivering buildings as a product rather than a series of services. Established in 1945 by Robert JD Finfrock, it has grown to employ nearly 700 people. Finfrock boasts a robust portfolio of commercial buildings from multi-family residential structures, student housing, mixed-use, and office buildings, and is the largest design-build provider of parking structures in the United States.
InfoSight is a manufacturer of industrial marking machines, metal tags, metal tag printers, barcode readers, and custom machinery for manual and automatic identification and traceability applications worldwide. InfoSight employs nearly 70 people, most of whom are located in the Central Ohio headquarters and manufacturing facility.
Finfrock promises value to their clients and delivers on that value by closely managing every detail of the design-build process. They expect the same value from their vendors. Wayne Maiuri, Vice President of Structure Works, LLC, explained, “We look for value in what we purchase. We need to establish the ROI and how long that will take before we take on a project. If there’s no return, we won’t do it.” Finfrock had already designed and implemented their tracking software, Piece Tracker, before encountering InfoSight. The software could track pieces, but employees needed to make several selections through a series of drop-down menus to access the information about a piece. By incorporating InfoSight metal barcode tags into this process, they are able to access all of the information in one click.
Ease of operation is not how they determined the investment would provide a return. Finfrock constructs buildings from precast concrete and relies on ‘concrete’ data to establish return. Before they began using the InfoSight LabeLase®1000 Printer, creating identification tags was more labor intensive. Finfrock determined the average production cost to be $0.45/tag. Once they began using the InfoSight printer and rewinder, the cost to produce a tag dropped to $0.16/tag. At an average tag production rate of 300 tags/day, Finfrock realized a savings of $87.00/day by using the InfoSight LabeLase®1000 Printer and ToughTags™. This means that in a little under a year, the cost of the printer is recovered.
Nearly six weeks into using InfoSight’s printer and tags, Maiuri says, “The tags print perfectly.” He acknowledges that the printer is an industrial-grade printer. The rewinder takes up the tag stock as it is printed, allowing the printer to batch-print an entire roll of tags while requiring little attention. With one successful application in place, Maiuri foresees using the InfoSight printer and tags “almost everywhere” in the company. “There are a lot of other utilizations that we are looking into.” At first, Finfrock was using InfoSight’s ToughTags™ to identify and track the rebar it uses. InfoSight had recently introduced Embed-A-Tag™, a specially designed stainless steel tag intended for precast concrete.
Finfrock ultimately switched to Embed-A-Tags™ as they began experimenting with various ways to attach the tags.
Initially, Finfrock experimented with covering the entire face of the tag with silicone to hold it in place during the pour. The tags have a tab that can be bent 90° to be embedded into the uncured concrete. Alternatively, they used silicone to attach the tags after the concrete form is completely cured and removed.
Additionally, the State of Florida requires specific identification information to be included with some types of precast concrete that Finfrock produces. InfoSight’s printer and tags have made compliance with this regulation easier. LabeLase® Producer™ makes designing the tag layout and including any barcodes or logos easy. The variety of tag attachment methods means that identification can be on one side of the tag, and the compliance label can be on the other.
InfoSight Tag Applied to Precast Concrete Products
InfoSight Tag – Left: Printed Identification Information on one side. Right: State Regulation Label Applied to the reverse side.
Other applications they expanded the tag use into include tracking storage location, using tags to identify and select trailers & equipment, and identifying and tracking strand packs through their plant. Finfrock began tagging monuments that are markers for each row in their storage yard. As pieces are placed in the yard, the monument barcode is scanned, easily recording in their PieceTracker software, where each piece is stored. Trailers and equipment are tagged so that selecting trailers and logging the loaded equipment is easy. Strand is an item that needs to be appropriately tracked in the plant. If strands are not identified or are misidentified, they cannot be used as desired. The strand tag will be duplicated with a barcoded Embed-A-Tag™ so that true cradle-to-grave tracking will be possible.
InfoSight’s tags are specially designed for applications such as these. The high contrast black and white markings make the tags easily readable, while the stainless steel construction makes them durable and rust-free. The barcodes are easily read with any barcode reader, including smartphones. InfoSight’s ToughTag™ represents an established barcoded metal tag in a new application, while the Embed-A-Tag™ demonstrates InfoSight’s development of new products to be able to help all customers with difficult applications.
Finfrock promises excellence to their customers and, in return, expects it from their suppliers. The InfoSight printers and tags have performed as promised, resulting in a 65% cost reduction for the production of identification tags. The tags have proven useful in various applications, which only adds to their value. Finfrock views the LabeLase® 1000 Printer and InfoSight’s array of barcoded metal tags as a valuable identification system, allowing them to identify and track production and equipment more efficiently.
InfoSight helped Finfrock reduce costs, simplify regulation compliance, and increase identification and tracking capabilities.
The return on the investment was realized in under one year.
Interested in beginning your own case study, or learning more about InfoSight’s identification technology and tag solutions?
Contact InfoSight to reach your local representative.
