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GREEN TAGS & CARD LTD

Alternative Thermal

Printing Option For ID

Card Resellers A Presentation of Green Tags & Card Ltd

Green Tags & Card Ltd

2011-12-13

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Alternative Thermal Printing Option For ID Card Resellers

Membership cards are being widely given out to customers

in the retail industry and other industries to gain customer

loyalty in a market nowadays. It is a means to assure that

customers remain loyal to the firm and additionally

through them further advertise the services or business.

There are a variety of membership cards and the firms

are working hard to have an edge to their loyalty cards over

their rival cards in the market. In order to stand out among

the competitors as well as make their member feel ‘being special’, firms normally require certain kind

of Data Printing on the membership cards, such as Member Name, Birth of Date, Member Type, etc.

Limitation on Thermal Printer

While ID card reseller receives the card from manufacturers, they then setup the printing format,

database and process the printing through Thermal Printer. This article reviews the limitation of

current Thermal Printing Process and our unique Digital Printing Process overcomes these issues.

1. High Machinery, Ribbon and Maintenance Cost—General

Thermal Printer cost around USD$2K-5K per set. Small and

Medium card resellers may only purchase 2-3sets of Thermal

Printer for personalization. Besides, the color printing ribbon

cost is around USD$50 for printing 200pcs of Photo ID cards

(average printing cost USD$4/pcs). In case the printing outcome

is not satisfied, photo need to be re-printed hence printing cost

raises.

A Thermal Printhead can print about 20K to 50K pieces, the repairs and maintenance fees are also

considered. The costs of Thermal Printhead, Gear Belt are high and require on-site services to

change the parts. All of these costs accumulate a long-going and heavy running cost for card

reseller.

2. Time Consuming and Labor Cost— although nowadays thermal printers have high performance

and great efficiencies, it takes at least 5-7seconds for printing monochrome data and

25-27seconds for full color photo printing. Besides, you must assign a person to input cards and

remove printed cards from the hopper. ID card resellers face tight production time issue if their

client requires high volume of Photo ID cards.

3. Data Printing On Custom Shape Cards— the main limitation of all thermal printer is they can only

pass through plastic cards in size CR80, CR90 or CR100.

Membership Card

Thermal Printer

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CR80, CR90, CR100 Size

Printhead may occur heavy scratches and need to be replaced if custom shape cards pass through

thermal printer. Some card resellers print data on transparent label and stick it on each card,

however, this takes a heavy labor cost label, time consuming and labels may easily peel off from

the card.

Variable Data Printing With Digital Printer

Green Tags and Card Ltd have developed a new

printing system which cards are environmental

friendly and digitally printed. Associating with

Variable Data Printing technique, artwork and

required data are printed at the same time on

core material. This provides a high degree of

flexibility and cost-saving solution for card

resellers.

1. Low Investment on Machinery and Parts— Card Reseller no longer purchase large volume of

thermal printer. What you need to do is merely send us artwork and data and we will finish the

job here. This reduces huge overhead on machinery, parts as well as repairs and maintenance.

2. High Speed Production— Comparing with thermal printing, we print artwork together with data

at least 20pieces Color or Monochrome cards within 7seconds per machine! Our innovative

printing system is 20 times faster productive than thermal printing. High volume orders can be

printed in relatively short period.

3. More Colorful— Standard serial number printing on cards are printed in black color. This is

because the color printing ribbon is more expensive than monochrome printing ribbon. We

provide a flexible solution for visual management purpose or simply want the database printout

to be more colorful.

4. Die Cut Cards with Data Printing— As we print data on core material then lamination, we are

able to produce different custom shape cards with serial number or even Photo printing on it.

Variable Data Printing on Photo ID Card

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Die Cut Photo ID Card

This provides wider option for card reseller, and client no longer only choosing standard card size

while data printing is needed.

Case Study:

Conglomerate uses Eco-Friendly Photo ID Staff Cards

New World Development Company Limited is a leading

Hong Kong-based conglomerate, which has thousands of

employees working in Hong Kong and China. In 2011,

HR Manager has contacted Green Tags and Cards for this

project. Because of the high volume renewal staff cards, they are looking for a faster and cost-saving

solution instead of printing all cards by themselves.

Green Tags and Cards suggest printing all staff cards in PETG material, which is eco-friendly and

digitally printed. The HR department only need to do is to collect Staff Information and Photo from

each department, consolidating and send data to us. HR operators sent us about 500-1000pcs per

time; we will check the photo quality and also the data format. Finished cards are sent back to client

within 7 days. “The card quality and speed are amazing, we are carefree for what Green Tags and

Cards provided”, HR Manager of New World Development Company said.

In order to fulfill their needs for temporary staffs and replacement of missing staff cards, we also

provide New World Development Company a certain quantity of PETG cards without Photo printed.

Because PETG cards are thermally printable, the HR Operators simply use these cards to print

Temporary Staff Cards by in-house Thermal Printer. This whole solution provides a great efficiency and

convenience to New World Development Company Renewal Staff Card Project.