Barcoding has become to common place in our lives we often take it for granted. It appears on just about everything we buy from the grocery store, the hardware store, and the pharmacy. It is being used to track all kinds of products and "things" in warehouses, courier services. maintenance departments, and luggage tracking for the airlines (if you think is takes a long time to retrieve your luggage now, try it without barcoding!).
The thousands of businesses who have adopted barcoding have done it for only one reason and that is to save money. This saving is accomplished as a result of basically three things. They are:
Cost Saving of a Barcode Fixed Asset System
When contemplating converting your inventory to a barcode system, you must consider both costs and benfits of such a system. The cost of implementing barcode technology should be weighed against your present costs in taking a manual inventory. The decision to implement a barcode system can be justified based on timesaving alone. Even the initial investment costs for equipment and conversion can ofter be recaptured in the savings and benefits derived from the very first inventory, using the new technology.
The benefits are both direct and indirect in terms of cost savings. Typically, direct cost savings result from reduced time in the following ways:
The difference in transposition or subsitution errors is even more dramatic. A human will make one error for every 300 characters keyed. An accepted error rate with the use of barcoding is about one error per one to three million entries.
In a study of barcode technology prepared by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, they found that when used in property management, barcoding has "far reaching" effect in both personnel costs and monetary savings. Prior to installing a barcode system, the Department performed a pilot test to determine the effectiveness of utilizing barcode. The overall objective was to increase control, improve accountablility and improve the accuracy of physical inventories. Each piece of property entered into the system had a unique indentification number printed on the barcode label and applied to the asset.
Cost data gathered during this study compared manual inventory and automated inventory methods. This comparison revealed that staff time required to perform the inventory could be reduced by 75% using the barcode based system over the original manual method. Other savings were obtained by reducing time necessary for reconciling the complete inventory. Automatic verification of inventoried property also saved time and removed the need for manual item verification. Finally, initial start up costs for the barcode project, including the initial application of the labels to the assets, were paid for int he savings serviced from the very first inventory using this automated approach.
In the past 15 years, Atkins & Associates, Inc. has worked with hundred of customers in helping them get their tracking of fixed assets off the ground. This includes customers with over 100,000 items to track, to firms with only 1,000 items or less. We have worked with these customers in a number of ways:
The thousands of businesses who have adopted barcoding have done it for only one reason and that is to save money. This saving is accomplished as a result of basically three things. They are:
- Greater speed.
- Greater accuracy.
- Paper work reduction.
Cost Saving of a Barcode Fixed Asset System
When contemplating converting your inventory to a barcode system, you must consider both costs and benfits of such a system. The cost of implementing barcode technology should be weighed against your present costs in taking a manual inventory. The decision to implement a barcode system can be justified based on timesaving alone. Even the initial investment costs for equipment and conversion can ofter be recaptured in the savings and benefits derived from the very first inventory, using the new technology.
The benefits are both direct and indirect in terms of cost savings. Typically, direct cost savings result from reduced time in the following ways:
- Locating items to be inventoried.
- Collecting and recording specific data about the item.
- Correcting errors.
- Identifying and/or locating items.
- Updating inventory for missing and disposed items.
- Adding new items.
- Posting, filing, and reporting the results.
- Matching inventory records with the results of the physical inventory.
The difference in transposition or subsitution errors is even more dramatic. A human will make one error for every 300 characters keyed. An accepted error rate with the use of barcoding is about one error per one to three million entries.
In a study of barcode technology prepared by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, they found that when used in property management, barcoding has "far reaching" effect in both personnel costs and monetary savings. Prior to installing a barcode system, the Department performed a pilot test to determine the effectiveness of utilizing barcode. The overall objective was to increase control, improve accountablility and improve the accuracy of physical inventories. Each piece of property entered into the system had a unique indentification number printed on the barcode label and applied to the asset.
Cost data gathered during this study compared manual inventory and automated inventory methods. This comparison revealed that staff time required to perform the inventory could be reduced by 75% using the barcode based system over the original manual method. Other savings were obtained by reducing time necessary for reconciling the complete inventory. Automatic verification of inventoried property also saved time and removed the need for manual item verification. Finally, initial start up costs for the barcode project, including the initial application of the labels to the assets, were paid for int he savings serviced from the very first inventory using this automated approach.
In the past 15 years, Atkins & Associates, Inc. has worked with hundred of customers in helping them get their tracking of fixed assets off the ground. This includes customers with over 100,000 items to track, to firms with only 1,000 items or less. We have worked with these customers in a number of ways:
- Assisted in selecting the proper software to do what would be best for them.
- Assisted in selecting the proper hardware to do what would be best for them.
- Assisted in selecting the proper labels for the environment their assets are in.
- Assisted in the setting up of the proper processes which would be the best for them.
- Assisted in the setting up the system, the process, and inputting the assets.
Fixed Asset Inventory: Advantages of using Barcode