Taylor suggests that the bar code reader is a perfect idea for VLI as it will make her work
and company's operations more effective. Taylor complains that it is tiresome for her to count
lumber three or more times to ensure that she is accurate about the numbers. She also believes
that manual counting will consume most of her time since she will have to take the numbers of
the lumbers for more than eleven hours. According to her, the introduction of bar code reader
that would capture the bar code information on each lumber is a perfect idea as it has several
benefits. Bill also complains that his job would be made easier if there was a bar code reader in
the company (Terwilliger, Ozias & Lauffer, 2016). Since the technology of bar code reader
seems to be beneficial to both Bill and Taylor, they should look for the best ways to convince the
manager to invest in it. Although Bob, the manager, insists that the managers in the mother
company headquartered in Texas do not trust technology, Bill and Taylor have to look for the
best idea that will convince Bob to introduce the services of bar code reader.
According to (Terwilliger, Ozias & Lauffer, 2016),Bar code reader provides a variety of
benefits to the company, although it can take a lot of time and money for it to be implemented. In
this regard, Taylor should sit her boss down and explain to him some of the advantages of using
the reader compared to counting the lumbers manually. Firstly, since bar code scanners use
systems installed in them, they eliminate the possibility of error that might result when humans
do the work. Human errors can be blamed in many organizations as they fail other than success.
Mistakes can be made when recording the information about the lumber, which might make
tracking them more expensive. In this regard, Taylor needs to convince Bob on how bar code
readers will eliminate the mistakes she might make while recording the information about the
CASE STUDY 2 3
lumbers. As a result, it will be easier for VLI to tracks its inventory by having to spend a lot of
money.
Secondly, readers are time-saving. Instead of having to involve a lot of human resources
to log every information of bar code by hand, the reader will only scan the data and translate it
into a computer. In this regard, VLI will have saved a lot of time of manually filing the
information about their inventories (Terwilliger, Ozias & Lauffer, 2016). Therefore, Taylor is
required to explain in details to Bob to ensure that he understands how the reader saves time. In
this case, she will have to do it practically to show Bob how it is tedious to flip the lumbers up
and down to see the code. Taylor also needs to show him how the reader will do to capture the
information to understand how time is saved.
Thirdly, since the bad code scanner has no human errors, it will increase the efficiency of
the company. Human beings may make errors when recording information, which will reduce
the efficiency of the work done in the company. The bar code scanner, on the other hand, will
ensure that all the information recorded is free from errors, which will result to a smooth flow of
operations (Terwilliger, Ozias & Lauffer, 2016). Taylor has the responsibility to convince Bob
how bar code reader will make the operations of the company more efficient to ensure he accepts
to invest it.
Since bar code reader has a number of benefits to the company compared to manual
capturing of information, Taylor should be equipped to answer all the questions that Bob will ask
to ensure that he is convinced to introduce it in VLI. However, Taylor and Bill can opt to meet
him and introduce him to RFID to see if he could buy the idea. On radio frequency identification,
it is more expensive but more efficient compared to the bar code reader (Li, 2018). It is a better
CASE STUDY 2 4
idea compared to the reader as it used radio waves to read the digital data encoded in smart
labels. In this case, Taylor and Bill are tasked to convince Bob about the efficiency and
effectiveness of RFID to ensure he incorporate it in the company to ease their job. Since RFID
uses waves to read information on objects, it provides a unique identifier that will differentiate
the object from others (Li, 2018). It is more effective as it does not only capture the information,
but it also gives the object a unique number that will ensure the object is easier identified. As a
result, when retrieving the object, it is the number that is only required. In this regard, the sold
lumber will be easily identified since its number will not in the system. Therefore, Taylor and
Bill need to put that information in the best context that will attract the curiosity of Bob to try it
and see how it performs.
CASE STUDY 2 5
References
Li, H. (2018, April). Design of housing file box of fire academy based on RFID. In AIP
Conference Proceedings (Vol. 1955, No. 1, p. 030006). AIP Publishing.
Terwilliger, K. D., Ozias, O. M., & Lauffer, S. C. (2016). U.S. Patent No. 9,306,944.
Washington, DC: U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.