MarkVery: The Future of Bullion Integrity Starts with Laser Technology

In the precious metals industry, every milligram matters.

Not only because of its intrinsic value, but because it directly impacts quality, compliance, profitability, and trust across the entire supply chain.

This principle is at the core of MarkVery, Tera Automation’s innovative project designed to transform traditional weight correction into a comprehensive platform combining laser trimming, marking, quality control, digital identification, and advanced traceability.

What began in 2019 as a laser-based solution for automated weight adjustment has evolved into a broader vision: creating an ecosystem where every bar can be verified, authenticated, and connected to a rich set of digital data throughout its lifecycle.

Why Every Milligram Matters

Over the last decade, the bullion market has undergone significant changes. Rising precious metal prices, increasingly stringent compliance requirements, and growing expectations regarding traceability have pushed refiners and bullion manufacturers to seek new ways to improve production efficiency.

One of the most relevant optimization opportunities lies in the management of give-away—the excess metal intentionally left on a bar to ensure compliance with minimum weight specifications.

While a few milligrams may appear insignificant on a single bar, their cumulative impact becomes substantial when multiplied across hundreds of bars produced every day.

MarkVery was developed to address this challenge through a fully automated and data-driven process.

Smart Laser Trimming: How It Works

The process begins with a high-precision weight measurement of the cast bar.

An analytical scale determines the exact overweight condition and transfers the data to the control software. Based on this information, the system automatically calculates the amount of material to be removed and generates the optimal laser path.

The laser then performs a controlled ablation process, removing only the required quantity of metal with exceptional accuracy and repeatability.

Once trimming is completed, the bar is weighed again to verify compliance with the target specification before proceeding to additional quality checks.

Every operation is recorded and stored, creating a complete digital record of the production process.

Reducing Give-Away and Recovering Value

Testing activities carried out by Tera Automation have demonstrated an average give-away reduction of approximately 7.5 milligrams per 1 kg gold bar.

Although seemingly small, this improvement can generate significant economic benefits in high-volume production environments.

For a refinery producing hundreds of bars per day, the recovered precious metal can translate into substantial annual savings, while simultaneously improving process consistency and reducing production variability.

The higher the metal value, the greater the impact of every recovered milligram.

Beyond Weight Adjustment: Marking and Surface Finishing

One of MarkVery’s most innovative features is its ability to combine multiple operations within a single process.

The laser system is not limited to weight correction. During the trimming cycle, it can simultaneously perform high-definition marking, serial numbering, traceability coding, and surface finishing operations.

Testing has demonstrated that even nine-digit serial numbers remain perfectly readable after significant weight correction procedures.

This creates a streamlined workflow where weight adjustment, identification, and aesthetic enhancement are performed together, improving both productivity and product quality.

Adaptive Imaging: Making Quality Measurable

The quality of a bullion bar depends on much more than weight and purity.

Surface imperfections, defects, and aesthetic inconsistencies can affect both customer perception and compliance with market expectations.

For this reason, MarkVery incorporates an Adaptive Imaging system based on advanced lighting techniques and high-resolution image acquisition.

The technology enhances surface details that would otherwise be difficult to detect, enabling more reliable automated inspections and quality assessments.

The resulting images become part of the digital record associated with each individual bar.

Fingerprint Coding: A Unique Identity for Every Bar

Every bullion bar possesses microscopic surface characteristics that are naturally unique and impossible to replicate exactly.

MarkVery leverages these features through advanced imaging algorithms and artificial intelligence to generate a distinctive digital fingerprint for each bar.

This fingerprint can be used to verify authenticity, support anti-counterfeiting initiatives, and establish a permanent connection between the physical product and its digital identity.

As a result, the bullion bar becomes more than a physical asset—it becomes a uniquely identifiable and verifiable object within the precious metals ecosystem.

From Traceability to Bullion Integrity

By integrating weight control, laser marking, advanced imaging, and digital identification, MarkVery goes far beyond conventional trimming systems.

It represents a new approach to Bullion Integrity, where every production step generates valuable data that can be collected, stored, and utilized to improve transparency, security, and operational efficiency.

The objective is to provide refiners and bullion manufacturers with a platform capable of enhancing productivity while simultaneously increasing confidence in the final product.

The Road Ahead: Building the Verified Bar Ecosystem

The future development of MarkVery focuses on creating a fully connected ecosystem for precious metals.

Current and planned developments include:

• AI-driven feedback loops for continuous process optimization;
• Blockchain-enabled digital traceability;
• Advanced laser-based anti-counterfeiting features;
• Inline XRF purity verification;
• Integration with industry standards and digital supply chain platforms.

Tera Automation’s vision is clear: every bullion bar should be verifiable, traceable, identifiable, and digitally connected.

The future of precious metals manufacturing is not only about producing bars. It is about creating trusted, intelligent, and data-driven assets capable of meeting the challenges of an increasingly digital global market.