Getting Off To A Good Start
For many small to medium sized businesses, their first implementation of bar coding comes in response to a customers’ request. Typically an important high-volume customer notifies you that point of sale bar codes must be on all future product shipments. There really isn’t any choice but to comply with the customers’ request.
At this point, you rush out and purchase an expensive bar code printer, cheap ribbons and labels. Then quickly try to make changes to existing application software so it will print labels on the new printer.
From this point, implementation by fire begins. Data file changes must be made to store the bar code item number within the item file or a separate reference file. You must either encode the item number that the vendor provides for you or establish your own item numbering program. And, when all of this is complete, you begin printing your point of sale bar code labels, applying them to your products and shipping the newly labeled products to your customer.
This entire process can take days, weeks or months to complete and comes with a price tag much higher than expected.
The outcome to this valiant effort is almost certainly a call from the customer. Usually not to congratulate you on your great effort but to tell you that the point of sale bar codes have an unacceptable level of failure at point of sale and you must correct this problem immediately.
As you might guess, the next step is usually calling your bar code printer vendor and paying them to offer you suggestions and sell you more products to improve your system. Now this is not necessarily a bad option if you are working with the right vendor. Otherwise all the new products, additional application changes and system changes will just turn into another costly experiment.
My strongest recommendation to you is get yourself an experienced independent consultant. A consultant can work with your business, customers, vendors, and bring in other vendors when needed without stepping on existing relationships. This is a win for you because the consultant has the knowledge you need and the freedom to develop a solution that best suits your needs.
Doing it right the first time will reduce your overall costs of implementation, impress your customer by meeting their demands on time and can show you ways to improve your operations through the use of bar codes.
At this point, you rush out and purchase an expensive bar code printer, cheap ribbons and labels. Then quickly try to make changes to existing application software so it will print labels on the new printer.
From this point, implementation by fire begins. Data file changes must be made to store the bar code item number within the item file or a separate reference file. You must either encode the item number that the vendor provides for you or establish your own item numbering program. And, when all of this is complete, you begin printing your point of sale bar code labels, applying them to your products and shipping the newly labeled products to your customer.
This entire process can take days, weeks or months to complete and comes with a price tag much higher than expected.
The outcome to this valiant effort is almost certainly a call from the customer. Usually not to congratulate you on your great effort but to tell you that the point of sale bar codes have an unacceptable level of failure at point of sale and you must correct this problem immediately.
As you might guess, the next step is usually calling your bar code printer vendor and paying them to offer you suggestions and sell you more products to improve your system. Now this is not necessarily a bad option if you are working with the right vendor. Otherwise all the new products, additional application changes and system changes will just turn into another costly experiment.
My strongest recommendation to you is get yourself an experienced independent consultant. A consultant can work with your business, customers, vendors, and bring in other vendors when needed without stepping on existing relationships. This is a win for you because the consultant has the knowledge you need and the freedom to develop a solution that best suits your needs.
Doing it right the first time will reduce your overall costs of implementation, impress your customer by meeting their demands on time and can show you ways to improve your operations through the use of bar codes.
posted by Joe Schambers at 5:15 PM
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