Automating data capture (ADC) has paid substantial benefits to small and large companies alike in fields as diverse as manufacturing, retail, transportation, healthcare and even in legal services. 

Widely used ADC applications automate time & attendance, job costing, labor tracking, document tracking, shipping & receiving, inventory management, quality control, retail point of sale, warehousing, distribution and so on. ADC technology greatly enhances transaction speed and improves overall accuracy of data collected. 

The telephony technology that enables ADC can also serve your data inquiry needs.

Consider examples of ADC implementation by Argon Technologies

1. A Time & Attendance Solution

The Inefficient System: A nonprofit organization provides services to disabled persons at their head-quarters and at peoples' homes. Employees servicing people in their homes need not come to the head-quarters. These employees fill in their time slips and mail them every week. Supervisors review and correct them if necessary before submitting them to a payroll clerk. Employees at head-quarters punch in an electronic time clock. Compilation of about 200 cards requires more than 3 days. 

The Problem: Often the employees did not meet ADP's deadline. If cards are not received by mail in time, those employees would miss the paycheck. A paycheck had to be prepared manually, ADP informed and records corrected. 

The Solution: Argon Technologies provided an analysis of their requirements and implemented a simple cost effective solution incorporating Control Module's data terminals and Argon Technologies's own customized time attendance software.

The time attendance software maintains a database of all employees, schedules, shift information and rules regarding payroll. This software is installed as multi-user software on a network. One data terminal is installed at the head-quarters and connected to one computer on the network. Employees could be issued bar-coded badges for entering their punches at the terminal.

2. An Inventory Management Solution

The Inefficient System: One company runs two businesses, one is distribution and the other is retail. Purchasing is centralized and the inventory for two businesses has about 25% overlap. Inventory for retail is managed on the basis of order points and that for distribution is managed on the basis of forecast demand. Accuracy of on-hand inventory was very important.

The Problem: Only hard goods had bar code labels. The accounting system was adequate (SBT's Visionpoint) but their data capture was unsatisfactory.

The Solution: Argon Technologies implemented inventory management in the warehouse that required all items to have bar code labels. These are printed at the time of receipt from within the program when quantity received is entered. Since the customer did not want to invest in portable terminals, Argon Technologies installed a computer with scanner in the warehouse to receive and ship goods. A custom Access database program is employed to enable notebook computers to collect on hand inventory in the warehouse and the store.