Supply Chain Bar Code Scanning  

We recently surveyed supply chain organizations with the most urgent need for supply chain visibility and tracking. One of the questions we asked was about the extent and timing of bar code scanning in their supply chains. Surprisingly less than half of the organizations use scanning in the best case. Inbound trailers are least likely to be scanned (8.6%), followed by inbound bills of lading (11.4%), factory point of use (20.0%), staging carts (22.9%), and inbound pallets (28.6%). The most likely supply chain scans are at shipping staging (48.6%) followed by pallet pick/putaway locations (45.7%).

The following organizations participated in the benchmarking research.

Abbott Laboratories, Bacardi, BMW, Carrier, CIBA Vision, C&I, Delta Airlines, Dwyer, Emerson, Kidde, Heidelberg, Jarden, Martek, Mossberg, Navistar, NCR, Nutrisystem, Otis, Pratt & Whitney, Raytheon, REM, Rockwell, Senninger, Swagelok, TNI, Textron, Tiffany, Tyco, and United Technologies.