Companies across the globe have transformed their supply chain with mobile barcoding. Whether you handle inventory in the warehouse, on the shop floor, for maintenance and repair, or out in the field—or all of the above—mobile barcoding is the new standard for modern material handling. If your operation doesn’t use mobile barcoding, your enterprise is at risk of falling behind your competitors.
But how do you know if and when you need it?
These seven red flags could be indicators that you need mobile barcoding:
1. You can’t find your inventory.
For operations that handle large amounts of inventory, locating those materials can be challenging. Often, stock levels in your ERP don’t match what’s physically on the shelf. Maintaining any degree of accuracy requires constant counts and re-counts. Your team wastes immense productivity hunting down missing products that should be on-hand.
Mobile barcoding alleviates these challenges by ensuring ERP stock levels are correct, so you can you find your inventory every time, all the time.
2. Your inventory accuracy is below 99%.
In today’s fast-paced digital age, businesses that handle inventory day-in and day-out must have accurate, up-to-date data. Manual and paper processes can only achieve a marginal accuracy of 60%—far short of the 99.5% or higher achievable with mobile barcoding.
3. You struggle with productivity and not enough labor.
Expanding operations to handle greater volume traditionally requires a larger workforce. Similarly, increasing productivity means adding more workers. Today’s consistent labor shortages hinder growth and productivity. Mobile barcoding solutions can mitigate labor challenges by acting as a force multiplier, enabling your existing workforce to handle more work in less time with less effort.
4. You need true visibility and/or traceability.
46% of manufacturers are prioritizing visibility across their operations to support growth. However, many manufacturers and other supply chain businesses struggle with
transparency. Mobile barcoding can automatically create end-to-end traceability paths for materials of every type to satisfy and simplify compliance. With one barcode scan, your workers
can instantly collect multiple dimensions of data at high granularity, including lot or serial numbers, Country of Origin (COO), GTIN, and more.
5. Your processes aren’t scalable or flexible.
Manual processes aren’t scalable. But digital automation can scale to multiple operation types and be tailored to individual site needs. Using mobile barcoding to digitize and automate inventory processes thus becomes a crucial step in preparing your company for growth and flexibility. Mobile barcoding solutions are endlessly extendable. New functionality can be quickly added with mobile apps.
6. You need a cost-effective way to modify or develop your solution.
Buying, implementing, and maintaining new mobile technology can be daunting. After implementation, additional budget may need to be allocated to refine, modify, or further develop your solution. But many operations are already hard-pressed to unlock funds, even if the developments would offer benefits. Having a low-code mobile app development platform (MADP) can equip your in-house IT teams with the ability to become self-sufficient. The result is lower cost and increased agility.
7. Your facilities require reliable off-network capabilities.
Many operations must collect data and transact inventory in areas with unreliable or limited network connectivity. Workers may have to stop collecting inventory data while the ERP is undergoing planned maintenance. In both instances, having an off-network mobile data collection solution to ensure work continues during outages is crucial to today’s fast-moving
market. Mobile barcoding provides powerful, seamless offline data collection solutions to ensure 24/7 operations, 365 days a year.
