TSC
data management software such as BarTender, ensuring seamless data flow across enterprise systems.” New products TSC has announced a raft of new and improved products, models and accessories into the market in the past 12 months, including adding RFID functionality to its MB241 Series industrial label printer and expanding the scope of its TH DH Series, including 2-inch 6.5-inch OD (outer diameter) direct thermal printers with optional HF RFID functionality. These additions fulfil the growing demand for printing diverse and application-specific media while enhancing adaptability across multiple industries and working environments. “The two-inch printer is for applications like patient identification, or books in libraries,” says Benoit. “It's a new market for us, a new technology. It's also showing that our RFID offer is expanding, covering more markets.” RFID demand As these launches show, demand for RFID is growing. “The first main market to use RFID was retail,” explains Benoit. “Many key retailers are now using it because it's very efficient, especially for things like inventory management. Its use is also growing in transport and logistics and industry. That's just two more markets where we are promoting our products.” Benoit expects demand for RFID to continue to increase. “With the volume of orders growing, and the production process improving, the price is going down, which also helps support the development of this technology,” he says. “In retail, for example, RFID's becoming a standard, which means there is a huge volume used. The return on investment for this technology is easy to calculate and helps to make it an easier sell for partners.”
Another growing market is for 2-inch and 4-inch OD direct thermal printers with HF or UHF RFID functionality. “The HF market is more specialised than UHF,” explains Benoit. “The bigger volume is on UHF, there are more applications as you can read hundreds of tags at the same time, and the distance of reading can be very long, so users can deal with a massive number of items quickly and efficiently. HF is more contactless, it's to identify something close and can be read by a mobile phone or HF reader. In healthcare, for example, it can be used for producing things like labels for identifying blood samples. “Also, UHF is sensitive to liquid and metal, whereas HF isn’t, so it can be used in a range of different applications. “Our HF reader is an interesting product and quite innovative. For TSC, it represents additional business as it's a new market that we are addressing.”
“
With the volume of orders growing, and the production process improving, the price [for RFID] is going down, which also helps to support the
development of this technology,
”
Sustainability Sustainability continues to be an
increasing consideration for customers – and TSC too. “Sustainability is something which companies are more concerned about and this is driving demand for products like linerless labelling as it saves a lot of waste,” says Benoit. “Linerless labelling also brings other benefits such as more flexibility and better printer capability as, with the same consumable, you can print different sizes of labels. You also have the benefit of improving capacity with the same volume. You can have 40% more labels on a roll
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