6 Features to Look for When Choosing an Employee ID Card Printer for Your Business in Saudi Arabia

Hospitals in Riyadh need cards that survive disinfection. Meanwhile, a construction contractor needs badges that endure both heat and dust. A bank needs tamper-proof credentials.

Saudi Arabia has the largest smart-card market in the Middle East and Africa. Therefore, demand keeps rising with it.

Modern employee badges are expected to open doors, record attendance, and show names in whatever language is preferred. That is a lot to ask of a simple plastic card. Business ID cards rarely look alike.

At Midad Advance, we take into account your needs and match ID card systems to the workplace.

1. Printing technology: Understanding direct-to-card and retransfer printing.

Direct-to-card printers transfer dye sublimation ribbons straight onto PVC cards. In contrast, retransfer printers print on clear film first, then fuse it to cards.

Direct-to-card – Quick and economical printing

Retransfer – True edge-to-edge colour, with cleaner results on chip cards.

Equipment is an estimated 25 to 30% of Saudi Arabia’s USD 85 to 130 million loyalty and access card printing market. Ribbons and services take the rest. To meet these needs, Midad Advance delivers Evolis Agilia, HID Fargo HDP6600, Zebra ZC300 and more for seamless printing.

2. Print Resolution: Getting every detail on the card right

An employee badge is read in seconds, often at a gate. Typically, most ID card printers run at 300 DPI or 600 DPI. However, three things must be checked before buying an ID card printer in terms of print resolution:

• First, staff photo clarity at badge size, since guards compare faces to photos

• Second, Crisp text for names and job titles in whatever language is preferred

• Finally, barcodes that gate scanners read on the first pass.

Additionally, higher resolution, such as 600 DPI on retransfer models, helps with microtext. At Midad Advance, we select your printer by taking into account all these factors, all these personalization factors.

3. Matching the printer to your workload.

Saudi facilities personalise over 50 million cards a year. Your staff volumes might be smaller but onboarding waves still test how fast an employee ID card printer can produce ID cards. Let’s compare speeds of certain printers :-

• Evolis Primacy 2 can produce up to 235 single-sided cards per hour.
•  Zebra ZC300 can produce up to 200 single-sided and 140 double-sided cards per hour.
•  Evolis Agilia can produce up to 150 single sided and 100 double sided cards per hour.
•  HID Fargo HDP6600 printer can produce up to 230 single-sided and 126 double-sided cards per hour.

4. Choosing a printer that supports your requirements.

PVC card printing covers most staff badges. However, a plastic card printer should also suit your other materials.

• Evolis Zenius 2: prints out 10 to 30 mil thick cards, which includes PVC, composite, PET and rewritable ones.
• Entrust Sigma DS2: 10 to 40 mil in CR80 and CR79 sizes.
• Zebra ZXP Series 7: 10 to 50 mil, including ABS and PET.
• HID Fargo DTC 1250e: 9 to 40 mil, including rewritable cards.

Saudi Arabia sources an estimated 90 to 95% of loyalty and access card production equipment and consumables internationally. Zebra and Entrust lead the local channel, and Midad Advance delivers both.

5. Encoding capabilities that turns employee IDs into functional credentials.

A printed ID card proves identity to a person, and an encoded card proves it to a door. With his in mind, an ID card printing machine with a built-in encoder does both in one pass. As a result, for staff, that means one badge for both gates and doors.

Magnetic stripe: Low cost and widely familiar

Contact chips: Suits digital signatures and more

Contactless: MIFARE DESFire and HID SEOS cards that tap to open doors

To meet these requirements, Midad Advance delivers Entrust Sigma, Evolis Primacy 2 printers and more with advanced encoding options. Additionally, we’ll help match the encoder to your door readers and transition your employee ID cards into access passes.

6. Keeping employee credentials reliable with security and card protection.

A protected staff badge keeps every door trustworthy. To achieve this, secure ID cards resist copying, tampering, and the Saudi climate. Therefore, what you should do is look for layers:

• UV fluorescent printing that glows under a backlight
• A protected overlay or lamination that blocks scratches, heat, and sweat
•  Encrypted chip data such as AES in Desfire cards.

In general, badges usually carry a name, a photo, and employee number, but sometimes they need extra protection to fend off counterfeiters.