Drill Bit Inventory Management Drill Bit Inventory Management

Last updated: April 2026

A drill bit manufacturer and reseller with fewer than 30 employees and more than 10 locations across the United States was tracking a large inventory of expensive, highly specialized drill bits on paper forms. Each bit had individual specifications, alloy and coating data, usage history, lease schedules, and maintenance records that had to stay accurate across multiple warehouses and sales locations syncing over slow internet connections. PCG built the full inventory and lease management system in Microsoft Access with VBA, achieving 100% data integrity across all locations and reducing the manhours required for manual inventory tracking by 300%.

Project requirements

Cross-country database sync. Inventory management and control. Bit lease scheduling. Reorder alert system. Multiple warehouse inventory tracking. Per-bit specification tracking including alloys, coatings, usability statistics, hourly use, and maintenance history.

Languages and database

Microsoft Access, Visual Basic for Applications (VBA).

Company size

Under 30 employees, over 10 locations.

Industry

Small business / industrial manufacturing.

❓ What problem did this project solve?

Industrial drill bits are not commodity inventory. A single large bit represents a significant capital investment, has its own specifications, alloy composition, coating type, and usage history that determines its remaining service life. When that bit goes out on lease to a client, the company needs to know exactly where it is, who has it, how many hours it has been run, and when it is due for inspection or maintenance.

This company was managing all of that on handwritten forms across more than 10 warehouse and sales locations spread across the United States. Syncing inventory between locations meant transferring data over slow internet connections, and any failure in that transmission could leave one location with inaccurate stock counts while another turned away a customer for a bit that was sitting in a warehouse three states away. The reorder system, the lease scheduling, and the maintenance tracking all depended on inventory data that could not be trusted to be current.

🛠️ What PCG built

PCG converted the company's existing paper forms directly into a computerized system, preserving the workflows the staff already understood while replacing the manual tracking with a database that synced across all locations. The sync architecture was designed specifically for the unreliable, slow internet connections the company's locations were running on. Validation of data transmittal and receipt was built into every sync operation so that a dropped connection did not silently produce discrepancies between locations.

Every drill bit in the inventory got its own complete record: specifications, alloy and coating data, usage statistics, hourly run time, lease history, inspection records, and maintenance log. The lease scheduling module tracked which client had which bit and when it was due back. The reorder alert system flagged stock levels before they became a problem rather than after a sale was lost.

The company went from paper forms and manual reconciliation to a system where any staff member at any location could see the current status of every bit in the inventory. The 300% reduction in manhours came from eliminating the daily form processing and cross-location phone calls that had been the only way to get accurate inventory data under the old system.

🔍 Technology used

Microsoft Access Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) Cross-country database sync Multi-warehouse inventory tracking Lease scheduling Reorder alert system Low-bandwidth sync architecture Transmittal validation

Managing specialized inventory across multiple locations without a system that keeps every site synchronized in real time? PCG has built multi-site inventory systems for small businesses since 1995. The $2,500 diagnostic engagement scopes the work before any development begins.

Talk to PCG

PCG founded 1995. All project details drawn from PCG's internal documentation. Client identity withheld at client request.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you sync inventory data across more than 10 warehouse locations over slow internet connections without losing records? +

This was the core technical challenge on this project. The client operated more than 10 locations across the country, and the warehouse connections could not be counted on for reliable high-speed data transfer. PCG built a sync system in Microsoft Access with VBA that transmitted data on a moment-by-moment basis and included explicit validation of both transmittal and receipt at each end. If a transfer did not confirm receipt, the system flagged it and held the record for retransmission rather than assuming it went through. The result was 100% data integrity across all locations. For an inventory of high-value industrial drill bits where the location of every unit had financial and operational consequences, a sync system that could silently drop records was not acceptable.

What does a drill bit lease management system need to track that standard inventory software does not cover? +

Standard inventory software tracks quantity and location. Lease management for specialized industrial equipment goes considerably further. Each drill bit in this system carried its full specification profile including alloy composition, coatings, size, and usability ratings. The system tracked cumulative hours of use per bit, maintenance history, reinspection schedules, and which client had the bit at any given time under which lease terms. A bit that had accumulated hours past its service threshold needed to be flagged for reinspection before it could be leased again. Off-the-shelf inventory platforms have no concept of per-unit service life tracking tied to lease scheduling. That logic had to be built specifically for how this business operated.

How did replacing paper forms with a custom inventory system reduce manhours by 300%? +

Before the system, every bit movement, lease transaction, and maintenance record was documented on paper forms and reconciled manually across locations. Staff time went into writing the forms, filing them, finding them when needed, and correcting discrepancies between what one location recorded and what another received. PCG computerized all of it: the same data entry that recorded a lease transaction also updated the location record, the client record, the usage counter, and the reorder alert threshold. Nothing had to be reconciled separately because everything was written once and read everywhere. The 300% manhour reduction came from eliminating that reconciliation work, not from asking staff to work faster.

Can a custom inventory system track reorder points differently for each product type and location? +

Yes. The reorder alert system PCG built for this project was configured per bit type and per warehouse location, because the demand patterns and lead times were not uniform across the inventory. A high-demand drill bit size stored at a remote location with longer replenishment lead time needed a higher reorder threshold than the same bit type at a central warehouse. Generic inventory platforms apply a single reorder rule across a product category. A custom system applies the rule that actually fits each item's specific situation, which is the difference between a reorder alert that fires in time and one that fires after you are already out of stock.

Is Microsoft Access still a viable platform for a multi-site inventory system with real-time sync requirements? +

For the right operational profile, yes. Access with VBA handled real-time cross-country sync with full transmittal validation on this project, for a company with fewer than 30 employees and more than 10 locations. The platform's limits become relevant when concurrent user counts get high, transaction volumes scale into the hundreds of thousands, or the system needs to integrate with external APIs or web-facing interfaces. At that point, migration to SQL Server or a .NET-based platform is the path forward, and PCG has built that migration for Access systems of exactly this type. If your current inventory system is running on Access and showing signs of strain, contact PCG to assess whether the platform or the design is the limiting factor.