Smart Inventory Management System
Real-time multi-warehouse stock control via barcode
A wholesale distributor running five warehouses was counting stock by hand into spreadsheets, with physical counts drifting well into the double digits against the system. We turned ordinary phones into barcode scanners and put real-time, multi-warehouse inventory in everyone’s pocket — no proprietary hardware required.
Counting by hand across five buildings
Staff were spending hours a day counting stock and updating spreadsheets across five warehouses in three states, with no shared real-time picture of what was where.
I watched the daily routine — receiving, putaway, picking, counting — and found the same break point everywhere: scanning and the system were two separate, manual steps.
- Shadowed the receive → putaway → pick → count loop in the warehouse
- Found the scanner and the system were never actually connected
- Targeted the gap between a physical action and the record of it
Discrepancies, blind spots and proprietary scanners
The manual flow cost hours every day and, worse, made the numbers untrustworthy — which rippled straight into sales and customers.
- Hours a day lost to manual counts and spreadsheet updates
- Physical counts drifting double digits away from system records
- No real-time visibility across warehouses — no easy transfers
- Barcode scanners needing proprietary hardware that didn’t integrate
- Receiving as a bottleneck — manual checks against purchase orders
A reliable scanner in every pocket
The unlock was using the phones staff already carry as the scanner — but that means handling damaged labels, multiple barcode formats, patchy warehouse WiFi, and keeping five sites in sync without overselling.
I built multi-format scanning (UPC/EAN/QR and more) with ML recovery for damaged codes, an offline mode that syncs on reconnect, and WebSocket sync so every device sees a stock change the instant it happens.
Scan, and the system already knows
The whole point was to collapse ‘do the thing’ and ‘record the thing’ into a single tap.
- Quick-scan to see quantity, location and status instantly
- Bulk scan for receiving and cycle counts
- Guided picking routes with scan verification to stop errors
- Multi-warehouse dashboard with live levels, reorder/expiry alerts and one-tap transfers
Real-time stock, no special hardware
React Native for iOS and Android, Node.js, PostgreSQL + Redis, WebSockets, ML Kit barcode scanning, offline-first with delta sync, and integrations into ERP and e-commerce.
The distributor went from a constant accuracy headache and expensive proprietary hardware to real-time visibility across all five warehouses — on devices their team already owned.
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