Minimum order, lead times, samples, the lock systems our cards work with, what our name does and does not go on, and what the FSC certificate actually covers. If the answer you need is not here, ask us and it will be, because every question on this page got here the same way.
500 units. If your project is below that, ask anyway. What is possible depends on the product and on the artwork, and we would rather tell you than have you assume. The number is not a sales filter. Setting up a printing line, a die and an encoding run costs the same at five hundred as it does at five thousand, so below that the price per card stops making sense for you long before it stops making sense for us.
Thirteen calendar days from artwork approval to dispatch on a standard run, eight on an express run and twelve on wooden cards. Over two hundred thousand units it is eighteen. Calendar days in every case, not working days, because that is the number you can put in front of your own client without converting it. The clock starts at artwork approval rather than at the order, so the fastest thing you can do to a lead time is approve the proof the day it arrives.
The same working day. Where we cannot do something, that answer comes back the same day too, with the reason, rather than a silence a week later. If a chip has to be checked against your reader or your lock system before the job can be priced, we say so in that first reply and tell you when the check will be done, so you are never waiting without knowing what for.
The model of the reader or lock the credential has to work with, the quantity, the material and finish you have in mind, and the artwork or a rough of it. Send what you have. We will tell you what is missing rather than send back a form. If the artwork is not ready, a quantity and a reader model are enough to price the job and confirm the chip, and the artwork can follow.
Cards from our plant are produced for and compatible with the systems most properties already run, including Assa Abloy VingCard, Visionline and Saflok, dormakaba, Onity, Salto and Häfele Dialock. That is a statement about compatibility and nothing else. We are not a partner, a licensee or an approved supplier of any of them, and we do not put their names or their marks on anything we make. Send the model of the lock or the reader and we confirm the chip against it in writing before production.
Yes, and nothing goes on the line until it is approved. Where the request is qualified the sample is free, in the material and chip you specified and printed with your own artwork rather than a generic swatch. The approved sample then becomes the quality reference for the run, so if something comes off the line that does not match it, that is our problem to fix and not yours to explain.
No. What we make for you ships under your brand, with no Kaway marking on the product, the packaging, the paperwork or the digital proof. Your client's brand goes on the product. Ours goes on neither. This is not a service level you upgrade to or pay for. It is how every order leaves the plant, including a sample and including the first one you place.
No. We do not approach a client you have introduced or are already working with, before an order or after it. If one contacts us directly we send them back to you rather than quote them. Competing with the people who bring us work would cost us more than any single order is worth, which is the practical reason as well as the principled one.
Yes. Material data sheets and the certifications that apply to an order go into the delivery dossier under your own brand, so they can be forwarded to your client untouched. That includes the packing list and the proof you approved. Tell us at quote stage what the dossier has to contain and it is assembled that way from the start rather than rebuilt afterwards.
Yes, under your brand and with your paperwork. Tell us what should and should not appear on the box. A run can go to one address or be split across several, and the documents that travel with each carton carry your name rather than ours. We ship to more than fifty-three countries, so an unfamiliar destination is rarely the obstacle.
On one floor in Dongguan, China, which has been pressing cards since 2007. Printing, lamination, die-cutting, laser engraving, personalisation and encoding all happen in that building. Kaway Group Limited, the company you contract with, is registered in Hong Kong. Nothing on that list is subcontracted, which is why changing a specification is a conversation with the floor rather than with somebody else's supplier.
Yes, and buyers and distributors do it regularly. It is the one form of proof that cannot be faked, which is why we prefer it to paperwork. Tell us roughly when you will be in the region and the visit is arranged around your dates. You will see the presses, the laminators, the die-cutting and the encoding bench, which is to say every stage your own order goes through.
The line is built for ten million cards a month and normal production runs below that, so the question is rarely whether the volume fits. It is which week your run lands in, and that goes in writing with the quote. The floor is 1,300 square metres with 87 people on it, and it has been producing cards for more than fifteen years.
Our wood card options are, under licence FSC-C195226, certificate SGSHK-COC-331895, issued by SGS Hong Kong. That certificate covers wood and bamboo cards and nothing else. It does not cover PVC, recycled PVC, key fobs, wristbands or accessories, and we will not stretch it to reach them. If a tender asks for FSC on a product outside that scope, tell us early and we will say what can honestly be claimed instead of quietly claiming it.
PVC, recycled PVC with an eighty per cent recycled core, PET, and wood in basswood, cherry, black walnut and bamboo. A standard card is CR80 at 85.60 by 53.98 mm. PVC bodies run from 0.40 to 1.0 mm and wooden cards from 1.20 to 1.30 mm, chosen by what the card has to survive rather than by price. We do not make metal cards or metal key fobs, and we would rather say so than take the order and subcontract it.
Recycled PVC with an eighty per cent recycled core, and wood and bamboo cards under our FSC certificate. Those are the two claims we can put in writing. The recycled figure refers to the core rather than to the whole card, which is the distinction a tender will ask about. We do not describe any card as biodegradable or compostable, because a PVC body is neither and a wooden card still carries a chip and an antenna.
Thickness, chips, closures, sizes and what each material will and will not do. Those are answered on the page for the product itself, where the specification sits beside them.