Effective inventory management is critical for companies to survive in a global marketplace now predicated on supply chain uncertainty.

Knowing exactly what’s in stock, where it’s located, and how quickly it can be collected and shipped can make the difference between successful quarters and significant losses. Companies also need to consider the costs of carrying too much inventory — as noted by the Wall Street Journal, inventory carrying costs rose 26% in 2021 compared to 2020, while transportation costs increased by 22%.

The result? Accurate, real-time inventory information is essential for companies to minimize costs without sacrificing market performance. To help bridge the gap between knowledge and action, SageX3 supports a wide variety of hand-held gun scanners to streamline this process.

Taking Aim at Inventory Success

Gun scanners, also called barcode or radio frequency (RF) scanners, are hand-held devices used by staff to quickly capture product information. The marker for scanners is predicted to grow at a CAGR of 9% over the next four years as companies look to streamline inventory processes and ensure they have accurate data on-hand to drive better supply chain and logistics decision-making.

Some of the biggest benefits of gun scanners include:

Portability

Gun scanners can be either standalone devices or applications that leverage smartphone camera technology to record inventory details. This makes them ideal for both smaller businesses and larger warehouses since the number of scanners can be easily scaled up or down as needed.

Ease of use

These scanners are designed for ease of use: Staff simply point-and-click to capture and store barcode information. This reduces the amount of time required for device onboarding and increases the willingness of staff to use these scanners since they don’t require in-depth training or specialized knowledge.

Accuracy

Manual capture of product data can lead to errors or inconsistencies which in turn cause mismatches between shipment manifests and on-hand product volumes. In the best-case scenarios, these mismatches are quickly detected, and staff take time to correct them. Worst case? Companies using incorrect data believe they have inventory that simply isn’t there.

The Sage X3 Advantage

It’s one thing for companies to capture key product and inventory data — it’s another to ensure this data is effectively transferred into relevant ERP systems. With Sage X3, however, support for gun scanners comes standard. As a result, businesses are better able to achieve key capabilities such as:

Real-time inventory data integration

With full support for scanner guns, Sage X3 allows companies to easily integrate product data into ERP systems. Users simply scan products or pallets and relevant data — such as shipment origin, product dimensions, and inventory value — are automatically added to the company’s Sage X3 ERP deployment.

Location management

Where is inventory stored? How long has it been there? What is its eventual destination? Rather than forcing staff to sort through massive databases looking for an answer, support for scanner guns means that employees can simply walk up to any product, pull the trigger, and get relevant inventory information.

Quality control

Quality control is critical to ensure that inventory items meet company standards and are ready to ship at a moment’s notice. One of the most effective ways to conduct quality control? Random checks. By having staff regularly assess the quality of items across warehouses and compare them to ideal specifications, businesses can reduce the risk of shipping broken, damaged, or out-of-spec items.

Scanner guns streamline this process by removing the need for staff to manually enter and track data about potential product defects.

Current inventory balances

As pandemic pressures have begun to ease, stock levels are rising. It makes sense: High consumer demand during the past two years has begun to ebb, even as additional products ordered by companies to fill this inventory gap have finally arrived in force.

The result? Many companies are now dealing with over- rather than under-stock issues. To help mitigate monetary losses, businesses need ways to accurately assess current inventory balances and make strategic decisions, such as selling items at a loss or offering them in bulk. Integrated inventory balance management paired with gun scanner support reduces the time required to compile this data.

Import tracking

With supply chains diversifying, import tracking is critical: Where are products coming from, when, and how much has arrived? Gun scanners offer the front-line data needed for this process, while real-time data monitoring with Sage X3 lets companies take action to ensure they have the right mix of products to meet evolving demand.

Ensure your inventory practices deliver accurate, real-time data with comprehensive gun scanner support from Sage X3. Ready to pull the trigger? See how IWI Consulting Group can help. Let’s talk.