How do you tie a QR Code to an inventory management system?

The original purpose of QR codes (early nineties) was for tracking inventory in large corporations. Since then Quick Response codes have become a lot more accessible for everyone with a smartphone. My startup builds a platform that gives the strength of QR codes for inventory tracking to small businesses. Most existing inventory management tools out there are expensive, hard to use and ugly. We try to be disruptive on all these factors. You're free to take a look -- http://www.cheqroom.com

What you need to do is integrate a http://scanova.io/qr-code-api.html?utm_source=quora&utm_medium=dforum&utm_campaign=scanova with your inventory management software. So whenever a label (with price, product ID, etc.) is generated for an SKU, a QR Code will automatically be added to that label. You can either use a QR Code Management Software (such as http://scanova.io/?utm_source=quora&utm_medium=dforum&utm_campaign=scanova) to add dynamic URLs to these QR Codes (which can be edited manually or programmatically) or add your own URLs using by specifying content to the API. In fact, you can even see analytics as to how many scans each QR Code (or SKU) is getting from traffic in-store.

Try for free MapYourTag to see how in one single interface you get quickly your QR code ready to print, then you just have to stick it on any of your asset, resource, item, asset, equipment... Just flash it with your smartphone to get instantly its geolocation and to update its status. More at http://www.mapyourtag.com

While not an exact match for the problem you state, you can look into http://www.ezofficeinventory.com Its a SaaS (web) based application that allows for tracking assets / inventory in an office, or car fleet, or tools tracking etc. All print labels generated are QRCode, so they can be scanned via any smart mobile  device with a camera and update information related to the specific item. It allows for distributed tracking, history maintenance of checkins and checkouts as well scales well for both organizational and inventory growth

I would imagine it would likely be tied to SKU (stock keeping unit). Depending on the company, Best Buy, in this case, it may have multiple SKUs tied to the item (company SKU, manufacturer SKU). All of these can be encoded onto the QR code. From that, it's relatively simple to write an app to do a SKU lookup and redirect you to the right location. If *I* were to do this, that's probably the route I would take rather than hardcoding the URL into the QR code. For example, if you switch your CMS or inventory system, it might change the URL structure entirely. People tend to make more effort to keeps SKU consistent in my experience. ---- SKUs are interesting/painful from the standpoint where every company has their own notion of what it should be. I've encounter scenarios where a single company had a marketing SKU, engineering SKU AND a partner SKU for every item. Needless to say, things get hairy very quickly and is one of the areas where data integrity is critical.

You could implement what BestBuy has done and that is to make a QR code for the consumer so that they can scan it and then see the online version of the product with reviews, specs and everything else. There are plenty of barcode solution providers that can help you with that or you could come up with a home grown solution.  Best Buy isn't really using QR codes to tie up the consumer with their inventory management system though, their focus is on providing the consumer with more information about the product when a geek is not around. You could also check out the ScanLife platform if you are interested in rolling something out. They have APIS and good analytics that could help you tie up the QR codes with your backend system.

I am re asking this question because I am a file clerk of a small office.  I have an idea or adding barcodes/QR code for each file.  My idea is: When a staff scan a file (probably from a barcode scanner on their desk) The system will save it to that location.  So when another person would search for that file. The system will say something - Last scanned "Office A"

I will describe a step by step process, although it might not match exactly what best buy does, I am familiar with these systems:Edit: TL;DR; you have a table of products with the product info, url, qr code, and upc in a database. When products arrive, you scan the upc code, the inventory program brings up the product, and prints the QR code. The QR code is stuck onto the product before shipping to retail locations. When customers scan the QR code, it links to the product URL, which then brings up the product info on a webpage.To start, the inventory must be tied to, or even managed by, the ecommerce application.1) the inventory manager would add a product to the system by entering the upc code already on the product, along with a friendly url "slug", for example "galaxy-widget-III" and any other product info to appear on the website. This information would be saved to a table in a database, which is used by the website to list products, and it can also be used to track inventory.2) When a user visits the web page "http://bestbuy.com/products/galaxy-widget-III" the ecommerce application would look in the database to find the matching product based on the end part of the url (aka the "slug") and show the retrieved product information on a webpage (this is what you call a dynamic webpage).3) When the product is first added to the system, it would be easy to generate a QR code for that URL, and save it on the application server, or even in the database table.4) When inventory arrives at the warehouse from a supplier, an employee can scan the upc code into an inventory application that has access to the database above, which would pull up the record saved in that table, this time searching based on the upc code instead of the slug. Scanning the upc code can also trigger a printer to print the corresponding QR Code sticker (maybe the employee will first enter a quantity). The QR code can then be placed on the product before it is shipped to the individual retail stores and stocked on the store shelves.5) optional: the URL in the QR code generated in step 3 can also contain a unique identifier to track each and every unit. For example:http://bestbuy.com/products/galaxy-widget-III?id=123Where each unit, even if it is the same product, would be assigned a unique inventory id or sku. In the above example it would be "123". These would be tracked in a related table, so each unit added to the inventory can relate to the existing product and/or web page.When customers scan a product QR code, regardless of the extra id, the same webpage can be displayed based on the slug.6) The extra id at the end can be used to track the location of each unit. When the products arrive at the store, an employee can scan the QR code for each item into the inventory application, which could automatically record the current location for that specific unit. This should be done through a separate web application where employees are authenticated. Encryption techniques can also be used to prevent tampering. You do not want customers tampering with the URL and messing up the inventory system (the id can be ignored on the public website, or tracked in a separate table to give insight on logistics, customer behavior, product interest, etc.)I hope this helps. Developing a custom system like this could easily cost around $300k to $3m, depending on how far you go with integrating into the ecommerce store or accounting systems. But the value is tremendous over its lifetime, especially when it comes to saving employee time by reducing data entry, reducing errors and shrinkage, and helping customers.