3 Ways Barcoding Tools Can Improve Your Fleet Operation

With thousands of parts in-stock in fleet maintenance shops, taking inventory can be a large undertaking. Having that many parts on hand can also make it difficult to track usage and availability.

Fortunately, there is a solution to help create more efficiencies in parts rooms – barcoding tools.

Using barcodes and barcode scanners can help fleet operations save time on inventory, cut costs on extra parts, and increase the organization of the parts room.

Save Time on Inventory

Using barcoding tools can greatly reduce the amount of time fleet operations spend taking inventory.

Island Transit in Coupeville, Wash., shaved nearly two weeks off its inventory process using barcoding tools. Ken Riley, the Maintenance and Facility Manager at Island Transit, said with around 8,000 parts in-stock, inventory used to take two staff members about 14 days to complete.

Over a four-year span, Island Transit worked to improve its inventory process. After making gradual improvements the operation began using a barcoding solution. The team set a goal of putting barcodes on all parts and purchased three barcode scanners. With those tools, Island Transit was able to have four to five employees take inventory over just one day.

“I don’t know why everyone isn’t using (the barcoding tool),” Riley said. “It pays for itself by saving labor.”

Save Money on Parts

Using barcoding tools to create an accurate inventory will allow operations to save money on parts.

By integrating barcoding solutions into an operation’s fleet management software, parts managers and their staffs have a real-time view of what parts are in-stock and which need to be re-ordered.

Tracking how many remain of each part through the fleet management system — and using that information to analyze how often parts are being used — allows managers to avoid ordering an excess of spare parts and more accurately stock their parts rooms.

Increase Organization of Parts Room

With thousands of parts in-stock and shipments of new parts arriving daily, parts rooms can quickly become disorganized. Barcoding tools can help keep these areas in order.

Using a barcode scanner, staff members can scan the new parts as they arrive and are added to the inventory.

Operations can also use barcodes to label and organize bins and individual assets in the parts room. This will help staff members quickly locate a part for technicians.

Keeping a current inventory of the parts in the fleet management system will also help employees know exactly what parts are in-stock. Before beginning a maintenance request, technicians can first check the parts inventory to ensure all needed parts and equipment are available. This will reduce wasted time and add more efficiencies to the maintenance process.