Barcoding should be an essential part of your business strategy. When implemented properly, it dramatically improves efficiency, and accuracy, boosting your ability to monitor inventory. Barcoding can help to streamline many aspects, and introduce better workflow to a variety of processes, within your company. The PTM-Vision barcoding system eliminates the need for keyboard entry for part number entry and many routine shop operations.
If you plan to only use the barcodes for internal operations in your company, you can make your own with an online barcode generator, or a barcode font. If you are getting parts from multiple sources, or have been using your own part numbers and have a good deal of inventory already, it is probably easiest to just create your own barcodes which can be done with PTM-Vision. These homemade barcodes can then be printed on standard label stickers with your office printer, and used right away for a number of purposes. Use them to mark boxes, or shelves, where a specific part is located. Use them on receiving slips to quickly receive inventory. Put them to work to assist with cycle counting, drill down on supply usage, and much more.
On the other hand, if you plan to provide items to outside retailers for resale, or plan to sell products in the front-end of your shop which will be directly accessible by your customers, then you can use standardized Universal Product Codes (UPCs). UPCs are 12 digit numbers that commonly appear below the barcode on many products in the U.S.