Hi Mike,
Your issue reminds me about things I was thinking about 17-18 years ago
(wow, it's really been that long). I'd built a point of sale system for
my mom's corner cookware shop in downtown Hollister. She had one
employee and one checkout station. There was barely even a cash drawer
and no budget for much of anything.
So we repurposed an old 486, a little monitor, and put Windows 3.1 and
Foxpro on. I made a screen for us to enter the inventory code (developed
the inventory management system the year prior). Each item in the store
was marked with a 5-6 digit code that the person would have to key in. I
made sure to have a 10-key and the process was very fast.
There was instant feedback on the code entered including product
description, quantity on hand, and price. If the user kept the product
in the order, and quantity on hand was less than zero, the user was
nagged and I was messaged to try to find the discrepancy (usually, the
product was mis-marked or the product had been put out before the
purchase order had been marked 'received').
Anyway, there were very few user errors, but fast forward a few years
and now her shop has web sales, and has moved from 900 square feet to
20,000 square feet and there are now 8 registers scattered around the
store, an actual warehouse, and like 30 employees.
I would go in for a few hours a week and work the registers myself, and
then go back home to make code tweaks based on inefficiencies I noticed
while working in the trenches.
There were now scanners at the registers and barcodes on everything, but
the old employees were still keying things in. And you know what?
Because the scanners were hand-held, and it would take a few seconds
sometimes to get a scan, the employees keying things in accomplished the
task with no more errors in less overall time on average (I tested it).
They could have the item in one hand, enter it with the other, pass the
item to the other hand and into the shopping bag. It was more cumbersome
with the scanner.
Most of the new employees stuck to scanning, most of the old stuck to
hand-key. There was no real issue for us because accuracy was the same,
maybe better due to scanning multiples of the same item versus entering
in the quantity manually - the employees already fast with the keyboard
were entering the multiple quantities with better accuracy.
I built this whole system from scratch over a period of years, based on
current needs and ability, and based on how the employees were already
doing things. It started as a completely manual sales-entry system
(writing each item down on paper invoices) and proceeded logically and
incrementally first to keeping the manual system but entering in the
sales from the paper at the end of the day, to the system I describe above.
I think if they are entering things inaccurately, it isn't the scanner
or no scanner to blame. It's that the system wasn't designed in close
integration with the users, and/or there was a lack of understanding of
the organic process and how best to automate that.
Are the codes too long or otherwise hard to read? If so, why? Can they
be entered with a standard 10-key? If not, why not?
This is just my ideas based on memories this thread has stirred. Forgive
me if I'm way off base for your situation. I know it likely doesn't help
one iota.
Paul
On 10/2/14, 12:08 AM, Mike Copeland wrote:
The work environment is very loose and management encourages people to
solve problems with free thinking as the encounter them. They even
verbally commend employees who take initiative and that, while being the
source of the problem, is a part of the culture that the owners like and
value. And at the same time, they tell them emphatically to "do it this
way."
Part of the problem is that there's little you can do to an employee who
messes up randomly. I mean, their method (scan to notepad, then type the
string in) works much of the time...but then fat dyslexic fingers strike
and there's a screwup. Meanwhile, the owners are asking me "can't you do
something?"
At this point, if I could come up with a way to determine where the
input was coming from, I'd be good to go.
Mike
Paul McNett wrote:
On 10/1/14, 2:52 PM, Mike Copeland wrote:
My question, is this nuts? Is there a better way? Am I barking at the
moon? Begging for problems? Any other Ideas?
Has anyone ever really asked them why they do what they do?
Paul
[excessive quoting removed by server]
_______________________________________________
Post Messages to: [email protected]
Subscription Maintenance: http://mail.leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profox
OT-free version of this list: http://mail.leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profoxtech
Searchable Archive: http://leafe.com/archives/search/profox
This message:
http://leafe.com/archives/byMID/profox/[email protected]
** All postings, unless explicitly stated otherwise, are the opinions of the
author, and do not constitute legal or medical advice. This statement is added
to the messages for those lawyers who are too stupid to see the obvious.
