Inventory management is a key concern for all warehouse organizations. However, multiple barcodes on a single label convolute this issue. Multi-scanning is a solution to tackle this challenge.

Inventory management involves overseeing the movement and storage of goods from the moment of arrival to the eventual arrival with the customer. The process includes receiving, storing, and moving goods, as well as fulfilling orders, packing, shipping, delivering, and providing customer service. Throughout each of these steps, scanning barcodes is a recurring task for operators.

Multiple barcodes are an obstacle to efficient inventory management

The relevant barcodes are typically displayed on a label attached to the item in hand. But if there are multiple barcodes, the question remains: What are the relevant barcodes? In practice, a significant number of these labels display numerous barcodes. Therefore, for the boots on the ground, it is not always clear what to scan. So, they apply a trial-and-error approach. This may not seem like a significant barrier, but it’s considerably slowing down inventory management processes.

In fast paced warehouse environments, workers can touch 400 items per hour. So, let’s do the math to understand how the trial-and-error approach impacts inventory management. If all 400 items have a label with just three barcodes and workers have to scan all three, they would total 1,200 scans per hour, 800 of which are unnecessary. Assuming a single barcode scan amounts to just one second would equal 800 lost seconds or 13.3 minutes per hour. Effectively, this would account for a productivity loss of 25 per cent.

Of course, these numbers are somewhat fuzzy, but they illustrate a severe problem for an organization’s inventory management. Many warehouses simply assume there is no practical solution or are unaware of the potential they are throwing away. This is why ProGlove designed the multi-scanning feature.

Multi-scanning is part of ProGlove’s Insight Visibility

The multi-scanning feature is part of ProGlove’s Insight Visibility solution. It lets operators scan up to six barcodes at a time and selects the ones that are required. This is not only a significant improvement for your inventory management, but it also represents a major boost to your productivity. Recently, a large US retailer confirmed this assessment. After extensively testing ProGlove’s multi-scanning, they determined that it has the potential to save them 800,000 monthly scans.

Would you like to learn more about multi-scanning to improve your inventory management? Schedule a meeting with your ProGlove representative to find out more!