Our History
iMARC Engraving Systems and Vision Engraving Systems are divisions of Western Engravers Supply, Inc., a privately held corporation based in Phoenix, Arizona. Western Engravers Supply is an international company with distributors around the world.
The company began as a small, family-owned industrial engraving business in the early 1980s. In 1981, Western Engravers Supply was formed distributing engraving supplies as well as doing engraving.
In 1982, the company’s direction changed from supplies and engraving to the manufacture of computerized engraving equipment. By 1983, the company was manufacturing engraving tables for an assortment of industry leaders. These engraving tables were used by the signage, trophy and award, and identification industries. The engraving portion of the business was sold in 1984.
By 1994, the company had established a relationship with a company in Australia that produced software to run the engraving machines being manufactured. At this time, the Vision line of engraving machines was brought to market, and did extremely well. Vision also contracted with a company in Canada to manufacture more complex software that enabled the company to market the line of equipment to an even broader base of customers. The Vision line today consists of 13 different machines and many custom variations of them. In 2000, the supply side of the business was sold so Western could focus on producing and marketing the Vision line.
In the late 1990s, it became apparent that certain niche markets had a need for a more cost effective, less complex computerized engraver than those being offered through the Vision line. The iMarc was developed with this need in mind. In September of 2002, the first iMarc machine came off the production line. This machine is marketed to pet shops, vet clinics and equestrian retailers. iMarc also produces the pet and ID tags that are used in the machines.
Western Engravers remains a family-owned business and currently has 55 employees operating out of a 24,000 square foot building in Phoenix, AZ. Vision has always manufactured the majority of its machined parts in-house. The completed product is assembled and tested at the facility and shipped directly to our distributors or customers.
