We use a database to manage our production scheduling system. We print out a form called a 'router' for each of our custom orders and the router contains a sequence of processing steps that must be completed to make the custom product.

When a person completes a process step they currently note the unique order number for that order and the process step completed and the date.

Every morning someone in the office then enters this data in the database and prints the daily schedule based on the updated info.

Question: what is the best way to automate this? I am imagining each person having a device that scans the unique barcode for each process step/order number combination, and then this device links somehow to our database thereby eliminating the need to do manual documenting and manual data entry.

Thanks!

A bar code scanner will do nothing more than type in barcodes (and optionally hit the Enter key). Everything else is up to you.

So you have to build all the system logic that will, for instance, advance to the next record, insert the date, decide when a new order is necessary, etc.