Not every business in the US has adopted barcode scanning yet, although the technology has been around for decades at this point. Also, even the ones that did adopt scanners and the associated software resources did so a long time ago.
Just like everything else about technology, modern barcode scanning has come a long way from its initial days, helping businesses in the supply chain to be more mobile, productive, and cost-efficient with every new evolutionary step.
Read on as we elaborate on both the need for adopting barcode tech, as well as the ease with which an updated system can be easily implemented in your own warehousing and/or delivery business.
Inventory Management: Challenges in the Warehouse
For inventory managers who are still keeping track of items on a simple spreadsheet, or via pen and paper, the following problems are far too common in today’s competitive industry.
- Missing or misplaced items
- Overstocking and understocking
- Unexpected out of stock issues
- Wrong delivery/mispicks
- Theft and fraud, involving the company’s own employees
- The human error factor – anybody can miscount and mispick
- The repetitive and time-consuming process of handling inventory management manually slows down productivity to a crawl
How Barcode Scanning Helps
By choosing to incorporate the latest barcode scanning technology into your business, such problems as previously mentioned can be eliminated completely or their frequency of occurrence can at least be reduced significantly.
Since most processes in the warehouse are automated on adoption of barcode scanning, it removes the human error/dishonesty factor almost completely from the equation.
Barcode scanning should help a business achieve all of the following goals and more.
- Eliminates miscounting and mispicking mistakes, thus bringing down yearly expenses drastically
- The system will alert the inventory managers when it’s time to restock before actually running out of stock
- The alert system can be manually programmed to set alert thresholds for each individual item if required
- The accompanying inventory management software will let the manager stay aware of their stock in real-time
- Inventory and sales data are constantly analyzed and interpreted by the main software to forecast and suggest stocking numbers
With everything becoming automated, error-free, and transparent, barcode scanning makes it impossible for internal theft to go unnoticed.
Barcode Scanning is Affordable to Adopt for Small Businesses as Well
What was earlier a substantial investment isn’t so anymore. Even the smaller establishments can adopt barcode scanning in their warehouse and delivery management systems these days, without breaking the bank. That is only possible because this barcode scanner API can turn any smartphone or tablet into an enterprise-grade barcode scanning, text recognition, and augmented reality device!
Given that all company employees should already have a smartphone, the API is all that you will need to invest in if you wish to incorporate barcode scanning tech into your supply chain business.
It’s surprising how far we have come in terms of not just inventing or improving upon new technology, but also in terms of how easy and accessible, crucial business tech adoption has become for everyone today. All the SDK needs is a camera-enabled smart device, and the software will handle everything else.
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