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The Benefits of Barcoding

Barcoding with aviation management software offers considerable advantages for more efficient processes, better decision-making and precise parts traceability. Whether you’re an operator, a heliop or an MRO, barcoding offers aviation operations the ability to quickly access – in a one-step process – the who, what and where information relative to a particular part. It also improves accuracy in terms of job costing and work estimation.

Ultimately, the benefits of barcoding in aviation management software all boil down to ease of communication, complete item traceability, and the precise transfer of information void of any human error. Here are the Top Six benefits of barcoding in aviation management software:

1. Less Human Errors
Barcoding helps to relieve businesses from the burdens of human error by emphasizing machine control over the transmission of information. So when a maintenance technician on the hangar floor requires a new part, your stores clerk simply scans the barcode for that part, scans your technician’s work task card, and then hands the part over to the technician to complete the transaction. There is no need to manually enter part numbers or employee work task card information, as this data is automatically entered into the system with the easy action of scanning the barcode.

2. Accurately Expedited Processes
Barcoding offers organizations peace of mind knowing that information is always correct and readily available. So when your technician picks up a part and wants to determine its airworthiness, all that is required is a scan of a barcode to quickly identify parts and load their history. This means that you don’t have to keep all your paperwork with your parts (a potentially nightmare). Instead, you can store this material in a management system and retrieve it almost instantaneously with a barcode reader.

3. Exact Employee Time Tracking
Barcoding offers aviation organizations the ability to accurately track employee time and labour hours, providing full operational transparency in terms of the time it takes to complete tasks and process information. Business owners know time is money. Barcoding is, in and of itself, a time-saving process, with huge potential to save organizational capital and increase revenue.

4. Maintain Proper Inventory Control
In order to ensure that your business is running smoothly and without unnecessary stoppages due to a dearth of required parts, it is imperative that you maintain and oversee stock control. Barcoding helps to dispel this fear of losing control of your inventory, as each barcode generated is a unique identifier for a specific part. This means that you can quickly identify a part when issuing parts to a task during the preparation of sales packing slips, vendor returns, warranty returns, core return packing slips, as well as during base-to-base transfers.

5. Make Informed Business Decisions
The director of maintenance might inform you that you should be charging more for a particular service, based on the time measured on employee work order task cards. This time worked per each task is tracked simply with the swipe of a barcode scanner at the beginning and end of the task. As a result, senior management can be proactive in terms of their responsibilities and can make more informed business decisions.

6. Parts Traceability
The most significant benefit to barcoding is instant access to the history of any part, component, consumable item, or collection of items with a barcode reader. This simplifies the processes of issuing and receiving parts. Data displayed from a barcode scan may include a part description, a part number “received as,” a part number “controlled as,” a traceability batch number, purchasing history, inventory location, expiry date, batch quantity, serial number (rotable), condition (rotable) and much more. | H

Christopher Lawn is the marketing specialist at WinAir, an industry-leading aviation management software provider. info@winair.ca