We quickly learned that Sharpied order numbers paired with manual keystrokes was not a secure approach. What to do? Well, M.O.M.’s default packing slip format was a perforated sheet – the top half was a packing slip and the bottom half had two labels you could print on and peel – allowing for billing and shipping address labels to print out at the same time as the packing slip, if that’s your thing. It was not our thing. But we put a barcode on one of those labels and started sticking those on the outside of the containers prior to closing the container. Then we’d scan the order number into HarveySoft and click through for our label. But those sheets of label paper were a lot more expensive than the plain paper they replaced. And we were using Crystal Reports and not the default M.O.M. packing slip template, so we later had another pass where we replaced the M.O.M.-supplied label paper with some custom paper we had made that had a small, barcode-fitting label in the top right of the sheet, and we started custom ordering that paper for our packing slips. But less expensive is still expensive. Finally, I think it was Steve Terry‘s suggestion that we print the barcode on a plain sheet, AND WAIT TO CLOSE THE PACKAGE UNTIL AFTER WE SCAN IT. That’s a money idea right there. Brilliant. (We met Steve touring Calendar Club at around the time we were moving into Interchange – That’s also when we met Alan Katzberg)

Steve made his suggestion at just the right time. We weren’t ready for it when we were in Gibson, or even at our next building, the more-warehousey Guerrero. 1. We needed conveyor to transport and stage open packages and stayflats – it wouldn’t do to transport open boxes if the means of transport was a big bin. 2. One of the main shipping containers was a cardboard wrap, and there was no transporting that prior to close – but by the time of Steve’s suggestion, we’d replaced the wrap with a stayflat, and, together with the conveyor, we could stage a bin of upright stayflats with the tops of the sheets sticking out.

So it wasn’t that it was necessarily a novel idea to scan a barcode on the slip, but it wasn’t really feasible on day one, and we needed help revisiting and retesting the assumptions of day 1 and considering if yesterday’s requirements were still true.