Hello,

We are currently in the process of trying to find ways to optimize our production. One of them was to find a way for the welders to be able to place parts without having to get their measuring tape out.

We've looked at inkjet marking, laser etching, we've tried having positioning points both at the bottom and at the top of the flange so that it would give us the angle of positionning at the same time.

Inkjet was way too intensive, it was pretty costy too.

Laser etching seemed like what we wanted at first, until we started piling up some components outside. The rain and casual humidity made the steel rust a little bit and because of that the laser etching wasn't seeable anymore.

Positioning points was also looking well. The problem we encountered with them was pretty much the same as Laser etching. Either the guy would forget to mark the web with a chalk before welding the beam together or he would mark it and the beam would then be transported 300 miles further away at another shop of ours where the chalk mark would then have disappeared. This is the positioning points I speak of:

So my question here is, does anyone use any method of marking/etching? If so, what do you use, have you tried any other methods? Why haven't you gone those other methods? The intent here is to facilitate the workload for the welders by avoiding them to have to pull their measuring tape out.