Background:

As for any company, physical inventory time is never fun.  Our inventory software did not have a good interface for doing this.

Problem:

The process of taking physical inventory was long and tedious.  The process typically involved printing our a huge list of parts, write in the quantity next to the part, then someone would enter that info in an Excel spreadsheet so that it could be imported back into our inventory software to reconcile.  Another issue was finding the inventory items themselves, most items were organized well, but some could only be found by the "one guy" that knows where everything is located.  Identification of parts and part numbers was needed.

Solution:

The solution was to create a desktop application that could be used to take physical inventory.  The application would search against our existing parts database and store inventory quantities in a separate table that could later be reconciled.  The application would also print out a part identification label on a thermal printer that was to be placed on the shelf of each item.  This would make subsequent physical inventories much easier.

Result:

Fig. 1

Fig. 2

Fig. 3  

I created a desktop application the keep track of inventory.  The application also has the ability to print out part identification stickers on a thermal printer that included part information along with a barcode.  Fig. 2 shows the part detail screen.  You can find out various information from the Detail screen as well as adjust inventory levels.  You can pull up a part by either searching by part number or scan the corresponding barcode the program had previously printed out.
The application was such a success, I created a web interface to allow certain other employees access to inventory levels.  Also various reports were created that were needed Accounting purposes.