I manage the national sales office of a very large multi-line motorcycle dealership group. Part of my job is controlling the inventory of new motorcycles in our warehouse. And I’m not just talking about a handful of bikes either. There are literally thousands of bikes at any given moment.

For years it has been done the same way. Once a week I print off a lost of everything that is supposed to be in the warehouse. Then I go from crate to crate and check each bike off of the list. When I have systematically gone through all of the crates I check the list to see if any were unaccounted for. And that’s when the real Easter egg hunt begins.

The problem with that method is that the vehicle identification numbers are very long. If you screw up just one number, everything can get thrown off. There is just too much opportunity for making mistakes. So upon my suggestion we implemented some new inventory control software. Each crate has already been stamped by a barcode printer right from the factory. So I just walk through with my laser wireless barcode scanner and zap the bikes. It has literally turned a job that would take me all day into a job that I can wipe out in about an hour.

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