Lot and Inventory Tracking at a Plastic Manufacturer

A plastic recycling company needed help with their inventory accuracy. They decided to use bar code technology to accurately record their transactions. When a truck of material is received it is assigned a lot number and one bar code label is printed for each container. The bar code encodes the lot number and a sequence number after it. For example, if lot ABCD is received with 50 containers, they are labeled ABCD-1, ABCD-2, etc.

On the shop floor containers are blended together in bulk or used for a specific work order. Each operator is equipped with an Intermec CK3 hand held computer that connects through their 802.11 RF network to Switchboard, which in turn is connected to their SQL Server database that contains their inventory records.

After the user logs in they see the main menu:

They choose lot tracking and the input screen appears:

The user scans the Job Number off of the paperwork provided to them and then scans each lot number from the containers or enters a quantity and then scans a lot number. A transaction is sent to Switchboard which executes a stored procedure that calculate the average container weight for each lot number and inserts a record into a separate SQL table with the collected data. A summary report is run against this data to give management a real time view into inventory usage.

Lot number label:

They can use the CK3 hand held computers to do physical inventory counts too. Because some of the locations are off site and out of radio range, these transactions are batched up and transmitted later.

The physical inventory screen:

The upload screen, when they are back in range of their RF network: