Why is the North American Heating, Refrigeration and Air-Conditioning Wholesalers (NHRAW) Association promoting the use of bar code technology?
The main reason is to drive costs out of the supply chain. If, for example, a shipping error costs a manufacturer $50 to handle the re-pick, ship and credit, it probably costs the distributor another $50 to contact the supplier, return the item and handle the credit memo. That is $100 in profit that is taken out of the distribution channel. At a 5% pre tax profit, that is the profit from a $2,000 sale. Think of the cost of receiving, counting, storing and managing inventory and you can see that the costs that bar code can reduce are really astounding.
