Laser Marking in the Automotive Industry

Steel, light alloys, plastics, composite materials, natural fibers – modern compact cars are assembled of more than 1.0000 parts made of various materials. Many of them have to bear unique markings due to quality assurance and traceability requirements. The markings must outlast a whole car‘s life and even withstand exposure to oil, fuel, or high temperatures.

On most of the materials used in automotive engineering, laser markers can add durable markings with high contrast. Laser markers are used in stand-alone-solutions for marking small parts with high throughput as well as completely integrated into production lines. The flexible, software-controlled process allows individualized marking contents of any kind.

Here are just some of the applications for laser marking within the automotive industry:

  • Marking of various seatbelt components with information such as barcodes, serial numbers and country of origin
  • The laser marking of various components and buttons on dashboards. These need to be both easily readable during the day, as well as illuminated at night, and for this reason, night and day marking is used
  • Cars aren’t only made of metal, and instead, feature other parts such as ceramic spark plugs. Lasers can easily mark this material too