BarCode ID Systems Donates 10th Year of Technology for Salvation Army

BarCode ID Systems, an enterprise mobility specialist and systems integrator, has completed its tenth year of assisting the Greenville Chapter of the Salvation Army with its Christmas toy distribution for needy families in Greenville, South Carolina. BarCode ID Systems has been volunteering its time, data collection equipment and integration expertise to automate the toy distribution process since 2003.
Through the Salvation Army’s Christmas Assistance Program, local families receive toys, clothing, food and bicycles donated by local businesses and individuals through the charity’s Angel Tree program. Families applied for assistance in the fall and were accepted into the program based on need. Children were eligible to receive bicycles based on additional application requirements including good grades, attendance, behavior and community service. Gifts were distributed over a two-day process at the TD Convention Center in Greenville, Dec. 19-20, 2013 and benefitted over 1,700 families and 4,071 children—an increase of 30% over last year.
BarCode ID Systems provided a custom tracking application, mobile computers and a wireless mesh network to simplify, accelerate and error-proof the entire process. BarCode ID Systems also worked with the charity’s programmers to enable barcode printing on client tickets, which were scanned when items were distributed. Before BarCode ID Systems’ assistance, the existing distribution system was a manual process that resulted in numerous problems including missing bags from inventory, duplicate distributions, bottlenecks and extensive delays in the distribution process. The automated system has kept distribution on time and ahead of schedule, while virtually eliminating mistakes, delays and long waits for problem resolution.