Mobile Data Capture for Error-free
Inventory Tracking

Intro

PEC Technologies specializes in custom business solutions. A longstanding customer is Frontier Truck Parts, one of the largest heavy duty truck parts suppliers in the US. The PEC team had developed a full inventory management and Point of Sale (POS) system for Frontier some 15 years ago and added enhancements over the years as Frontier grew. Now Frontier had reached the point where they needed mobile barcode capture for warehouse and sales staff.

Challenge

Frontier warehouse staff receive large truck parts into inventory, label them with barcode tags and track inventory location across outdoor and indoor storage areas. They were taking parts over to the computer and typing in 12-digit serial numbers manually. (Some of these parts are very large, cumbersome automotive components such as axles and differentials for heavy duty machinery.)

Frontier salespeople needed to know quickly, from their phones, whether parts were available in the warehouse. Lastly, they needed mobile access to the PIC (Pick in Carton) ticket system for order fulfilment. PIC tickets systems track inventory from receiving to picking and packing for customer orders. Staff fulfilling orders were manually searching through stacks of parts and sometimes inadvertently picked and shipped the wrong item. They needed a more efficient, less error-prone process.

PEC had built the Frontier inventory system as a web-based application with a Windows back-end. They wanted to continue with a web-based solution rather than develop a separate code base for a native mobile app. Ease of mobile scanning, performance and accuracy of QR code data capture in a warehouse setting were the primary criteria.

Solution

The development team initially considered open-source barcode libraries but found very different scanning behaviours even within a single phone ecosystem. The project was put on hold while the Frontier team considered their options. Although off-the-shelf packages seemed like a viable option, Frontier chose to continue with the custom build route due to the negative experience of a sister company that had invested in an off-the-shelf package, which did not fully meet their requirements and involved high maintenance costs.

PEC set to work finding a high accuracy mobile barcode capture solution and very quickly discovered Dynamsoft Barcode Reader SDK. The online demo gave the team immediate proof of the accuracy and speed of data capture in warehouse conditions, so the team moved into development mode.

The essentials were completed, on PEC's Angular framework, in just half a day. Customizing the user interface took another day – so within 2 days PEC had a working barcode capture solution to test in Frontier's warehouse.

We've had nothing but praise from our users. Dynamsoft Barcode Reader has streamlined warehouse operations and is proving highly accurate."

– Tim Hendriksen, Co-founder and Head of Development, PEC Technologies

Impact

Inventory receiving at Frontier is now far more efficient. Staff no longer need to carry parts over to the computer to type in part numbers. They simply use their phones to scan parts as they arrive. Order fulfilment is also more streamlined, and errors are a thing of the past. Staff pick each item on an invoice by scanning the QR code to check that it is correct before packing. The part is then automatically marked as sold in the inventory management system. Using Dynamsoft Barcode Reader has streamlined warehouse operations and eliminated costly manual errors.

Adding mobile data capture to our inventory management system took just 2 days. Warehouse workers can now quickly scan parts with their mobile phones."

– Tim Hendriksen, Co-founder and Head of Development, PEC Technologies