Inventory Control Solutions

[voiceburg]

We have a equipment room that has about 1000 pieces of test equipment. I am looking for a way to use Labview or another NI program to create a means for tracking when items are taken out of the equipment room. A bar code sytem maybe. Someway to scan each piece and create a data base with the borrowers name..dates checked out etc. Also as items are scanned back in the data base would be updated.

Thanks in advance for ideas

[Dennis_Knutson]

One of the tasks that I've been given to work in my so-called free time is a program to track instruments that are in testers and interface to our calibration data base. As instruments are moved around, we need to know where they are when it's time to cal them. Reading a bar code is a trivial exercise. A string control on a front panel and a USB or keyboard wedge scanner is all that you need. The scanner acts just like a keyboard so using one is no different than manually entering text. You can also get the database connectivity toolkit that makes writing and reading to any database simple. If you're comfortable with SQL, you can use LabSQL or write your own ADO routines with the ActiveX methods and properties.

[voiceburg]

Thanks for the information. I'm not familiar with SQL or ADO routines. I was hoping to just use Labview. It looks like from what you said I could use a data base toolkit with labview. I will look into that.

Thank you

[tbob]

If you are not familiar with databases, and the size of your list of people and inventory items is small, you could use a table in Labview.  Tables have multiple rows and columns.  You can put a heading for each column, like name, time, device, in/out.  As the barcode is scanned, an entry can be placed into the table using Labview alone.  You could also create routines to search the table and display results and such.  However, I would recommend using a real database and learning the database toolset, especially since your table will get quite large over time.  Let us know if you need more help.

[mikeporter]

One important thing to consider is that getting (buying!) the database connectivity from NI will not keep you from having to learn about SQL or databases. In fact I'm not sure you would want to avoid learning about SQL. Test engineers have always needed to know about DAQ, GPIB, file IO and a bunch of other stuff. Well today you're going to have to learn about databases too...

Attached an (ever-evolving) collection of things that I am writing and putting together to demonstrate database connectivity and help point folks in the right direction.

Mike...

[tst]

I like that idea, Mike (although I couldn't open the 7.1 VIs).

One point is that even though schlep is now spelled correctly, the last line of the first paragraph still states that we want to prevent decoupling.

[mikeporter]

Yes. Thanks tst (Wile E, Al, Lucy, etc...)

The last sentence of the first paragraph should read:

"This comment, in turn, brought up the whole issue of close coupling between components—and how to prevent it."

Mike..