Scan Based Assembly Accuracy: Every Touch, Counted and Correct

When the problem is not speed, it is certainty

Most fast-growing brands hit a moment when speed is no longer the real issue. Orders are flying, teams are hustling, pallets are moving. The uncomfortable question lurking underneath is simple: how sure are you that everything is actually right. Scan based assembly accuracy exists for that moment. It is the difference between hoping your kits, bundles, and relabeled cartons are correct and knowing that every touch was verified in real time.

By the time leaders start asking for that level of certainty, they have usually learned the hard way what happens without it. As Maureen Milligan explains, "Most of the customers who come to us from another 3PL, their challenges have always been access to their data, order accuracy and efficiency, and basically just meeting the committed requirements." She adds, "Even when they were getting their new inventory delivered to the warehouses, they weren't getting received and on the shelves in a timely fashion to satisfy customer orders." If basic receiving is off, assembly work stacked on top of it will not magically fix itself.

How assembly accuracy falls apart without scanning

On a simple line, you can sometimes get away with tribal knowledge. People remember which components go together and which label belongs on which carton. As soon as you add multiple bundles, channel specific packs, retail prep, subscription kitting, and relabeling projects, memory stops being reliable. One missed piece in a kit or one wrong barcode on a carton quietly breaks the promise you made to a customer or a retailer.

Retailers notice those misses quickly. Joel Malmquist points out, "Walmart's pretty intense with their labeling rules. Dick's Sporting Goods is the same; if you don't do it right, you get those massive chargeback." Missing or incorrect items in a case, wrong labels, or misbuilt pallets all show up as chargebacks and strained conversations with buyers.

Marketplaces behave the same way, just with different language. As Jen Myers explains, "We also help them label products correctly." She spells out the cost of getting that wrong: "If you send stuff to Amazon that has the wrong labels on, or it's not to their specs, or the wrong dimensions, you get chargebacks basically they fine you!" When assembly work is not backed by scan based checks, those fines are not edge cases; they are recurring line items.

What scan based assembly accuracy actually means

Scan based assembly accuracy is not just the act of beeping a barcode. It is a design choice. Every step that can change inventory or configuration is paired with a scan. When components are picked, they are scanned. When they arrive at an assembly station, they are scanned. When a kit, bundle, or relabeled unit is completed, it is scanned back into finished inventory.

Behind the scenes, the warehouse management system is watching each of those scans. It knows what should have been picked, what should be on the table, and what the output should look like. If something does not match, the system can stop the process instead of letting an error flow downstream to a retailer dock or a customer doorstep.

Bryan Wright describes the underlying expectation this way: "A bad WMS system will not track inventory 100%, as it should." Scan based assembly accuracy assumes the opposite. "A good WMS tracks inventory through the warehouse at every point that you touch it." Scans are how that tracking happens in real time instead of as a clean up project later.

Why spreadsheets and clipboards cannot keep up

It is tempting to think that careful people with good spreadsheets can solve assembly accuracy issues. For a while, they can. But as the number of SKUs, channels, and projects grows, manual tracking falls behind. Counts become estimates. Work in process sits in gray zones that are not quite inventory and not quite shipped. Every new promotion or retailer program adds more complexity to an already fragile setup.

Bryan has seen the downstream effects many times: "A bad WMS system will not track inventory 100%, as it should." Without scan based checks, partial kits and half relabeled cartons become invisible problems. You only discover them when a shipment fails or a customer complains.

Maureen sees the frustration from the customer side: "Most of the customers who come to us from another 3PL, their challenges have always been access to their data, order accuracy and efficiency, and basically just meeting the committed requirements." Scan based assembly accuracy is one of the tools that turns those vague challenges into something you can actually fix.

The founder's fear: more volume, more hidden mistakes

Founders do not just worry about late shipments. They worry about wrong shipments. A launch that arrives with missing components or incorrect labels does more than generate returns. It damages trust with retailers and marketplaces that took a chance on a growing brand.

That is one reason leaders start asking how assembly work is verified, not just how quickly it can be done. Joel shares how that concern sounds when the stakes are obvious. One customer asked, "Say Target drops 10 POs and gives us 48 hours to turn it around? Is G10 the right partner for us to navigate through that and execute at a high level?" Underneath that question is another: Will every case, pallet, and kit actually be right when the truck pulls away.

Joel explains the response when speed and accuracy have to live together: "We are able to help them get through that big surge and develop and grow their business as it comes in." Scan based assembly accuracy makes that possible. It lets more people help on a project without sacrificing checks. The system, not just the most experienced supervisor, keeps everyone honest.

Holly Woods gives a ground level view of this pressure: "Our supervisor, warehouse manager, and several employees worked that entire day into the night, came back in in the morning at 5 a.m. to make sure that we had the routing completed for that pickup for Target." In that kind of crunch, scan based checks keep a long shift from turning into a long list of expensive mistakes.

Designing assembly work around scans, not memory

Scan based assembly accuracy does not happen by accident. It starts with designing work so that scanning is natural and required. That means clear locations for components, barcodes on everything that moves, and workflows that refuse to advance when a scan does not match expectations.

Jen talks about the system side of that design: "Helping people grow, part of that is the channel expansion and having a warehouse management system, WMS, that supports that seamlessly." She continues, "Everything has to be connected. Now I'm selling into stores as well, and they order a whole pallet at a time as opposed to one unit at a time, as customers would do." Scan based design is how you keep that connection solid when a single SKU might be part of a D2C bundle, a retail ready case, and a marketplace kit at the same time.

On the services side, John Pistone explains, "We have created these other value-added services." He makes it specific: "I can kit for them. I can bundle for them. I can build an Amazon seller central account, and I can do all the content build-up." Scan based accuracy is what keeps those services from turning into black boxes. Every kit, bundle, and prep job lives in the WMS with a trail of scans behind it.

Scan based accuracy inside omni channel operations

Omni channel sounds smooth in a strategy deck. In the warehouse, it can look messy. The same physical product may be headed to D2C customers, Amazon, big box retailers, and smaller wholesale accounts. Each channel asks for slightly different assemblies, labels, and packs.

Jen points out that this is exactly where systems need to be strong: "Helping people grow, part of that is the channel expansion and having a warehouse management system, WMS, that supports that seamlessly." Scan based assembly accuracy is how you make that support real. It lets you run different recipes for different channels while keeping a single source of truth for inventory and finished goods.

Without scan based checks, omni channel expansion often means omni channel confusion. With them, you can see which units were built for which purpose, how many are available, and how each channel's requirements were applied on the floor.

Visibility that turns accuracy into a dashboard, not a hope

Accuracy is only comforting if you can see it. Brands need more than a promise that assembly work is correct. They want proof. That proof shows up as history in the WMS: which jobs ran, which scans were made, which exceptions were caught, and how much finished product is ready to ship.

Bryan describes that visibility layer: "We have portals that show you the data. We have history that shows you all of that tracking. It shows the product landed on the dock at 8 o'clock." The same history shows when that product moved into an assembly job, how many units came out, and whether any mismatches were flagged along the way.

Maureen explains how customers react when they see that information for themselves: "They can actually watch those progressions going on." For leaders used to guessing how far a project has progressed, watching those progress bars move is a very different feeling.

Culture that treats scanning as non negotiable

Scan based assembly accuracy depends on technology, but it lives or dies on culture. If scanning is treated as optional or as something to skip when days get busy, systems cannot do their job. Teams have to believe that scanning protects them as much as it protects the customer.

Mark Becker captures the mindset that helps make that true: "Yeah, I live in the grind every day." That grind includes doing the small, repetitive steps correctly, even when it would be faster in the moment to cut a corner.

Bryan sets the bar for important projects: "You go 110% and make sure that when they're done, this project is something they're going to remember." Implementing scan based assembly accuracy for a new program often feels like that kind of project. It is work up front that pays off every time a kit or pallet leaves the building without surprises.

When something does slip, Maureen describes the response: "We say, We made a mistake, this is what happened, this is how we're correcting, it and this is how we're going to make it right by you." Scan based history makes those conversations easier, because you can see exactly where a process failed and how to prevent the same issue next time.

Why scan based assembly accuracy becomes a quiet competitive edge

From a distance, scan based assembly accuracy can look like an internal detail. Customers do not see the beeps or the screens. Retail buyers do not ask how many scans it took to build a pallet. Marketplaces do not show a badge for verified assembly. The impact shows up somewhere else: in fewer returns, fewer chargebacks, fewer disputes, and more confidence to say yes to complex programs.

It connects directly to Connor Perkins's simple truth: "To be successful and grow rapidly you have to sell a lot of your products. That boils down to having a good product, but also having a good supply chain." Scan based assembly accuracy strengthens that supply chain at the exact point where complexity and risk tend to concentrate.

If your internal conversations about assembly include phrases like We think we have enough or We hope that job finished yesterday, it may be time to let scans, not guesses, define what accurate really means. With the right WMS, workflows, and culture in place, scan based assembly accuracy turns every touch into a small data point that protects your brand while it grows.