Barcode Notification System

[NickRed18]

Hi all,

I work for a small manufacturing company, and I have been tasked with setting up a barcode system. I am not trying to setup an inventory management system, I do not need to keep track of any quantities (or at least as of right now). I could see the system wanting to be expanded into keeping track of inventory and maybe even similar to an ERP system, but a simple setup will work just fine for now.
I've researched some about barcodes and how they work with excel. Like scanning a barcode just acts as if the user typed in the actual number (and hit enter? maybe, I am not sure). There's a couple other things I've learned, but I have zero real experience with them.

Basically, what I need help with is creating a notification system associated with each of our part numbers (around 150-200 parts in total). The end goal of this project is to have a TV/display of a matrix of all/a majority of the parts (maybe just by casting a desktop's screen?) with a color coding system to show the status of the part.

Green = in stock with a decent supply
Red = Out of stock/Nearing out of stock
Yellow = Part has been ordered and is on the way (possibly display an expected delivery date)

The employee in the inventory section will notice the part is getting low on its supply, and will scan the barcode for that part number. The TV will turn that part number Red showing it needs ordering. The sales team will notice the Red part number on the screen, and they will place an order for it. They will scan their barcode for that part number, and the TV will turn Yellow for that part number. Once the part is delivered, the receiving team will scan their barcode for that part number, and the TV will turn Green for that part number.

The part that is giving me trouble is how exactly a barcode scanner interacts with excel.
Whenever it scans a code, can you assign a certain cell the value is pasted into?
Do you program the barcode scanner about which workbook to use, or is that done in excel?
Can you have 2 different barcode scanners, that when scanning the same barcode they perform different tasks (turn the part number to Red, and then turn the part number to yellow, etc.)?

I am by no means an expert with VBA, but I have some experience and I feel I could figure out a solution if given some guidance.


Thank you for your time,

Nick

 

[NickRed18]

Howard,

I've seen videos of using a barcode scanner in excel, and I am actually about to purchase a cheap one to test my code. The examples I have seen all show the scanned barcode being inserted into a cell in excel, and then it performs a "carriage return" - presses enter to return to the next line.

Do you know if I'd be able to setup the scanner to only scan to a single cell (2,9) every time and then press enter? Or would this be a VBA procedure? Would the workbook have to always be open and the active window (as in if you clicked out of the excel window onto the desktop, the excel page is not the active window on the screen). Would I require any sort of excel Add-Ins?

Sorry for the number of questions, just thought I'd ask them all to help on the number of replies.

Thanks,
Nick