Interfacing Shop-Floor Barcode Badge Scanners to a Windows Labor System at Modern Machine Works
Originally published in our application archives · Updated August 2026
Summary: Modern Machine Works, a precision shaft and crankshaft manufacturer for over 60 years, uses WinWedge to connect rugged RS232 barcode badge readers to touch-screen shop-floor PCs — feeding scanned employee IDs, with automatic date and time stamps, into the Windows front end of its labor data collection database.
The Challenge
The company needed shop-floor employee identification for its labor data collection system — accurate, efficient, and rugged enough for a machine shop. Bar-coded badges and stainless-steel Welch Allyn BCR-6480 scanners handled the physical side, and hardened touch-screen terminals ran a custom Windows front end to the company database. The gap was the connection: hardware keyboard wedges couldn’t interface properly with Windows applications, couldn’t support DDE, and a plug-in device dangling off a factory-floor terminal was one more thing to break.
The Solution
WinWedge closed the gap in software. Badge scans arrive on the serial port; WinWedge delivers them into the custom Windows application as keystrokes or via DDE, with full control over the input — parsing, filtering, keystroke macro insertion, and automatic date and time stamping on every scan. No added hardware on the floor, nothing to damage, and the labor system receives clean, stamped, correctly-formatted records from every station.
The Results
- No custom code required to interface between barcode scanners and the Windows labor system
- Automatic date and time stamp on every badge scan
- Automatic keystroke macros and filtering tailor each scan to the application’s exact input format
- Durable in a harsh machine-shop environment — no extra hardware to break
This accurate and efficient system – bar code scanner, touch screen computer application and the WinWedge – provides an easy-to-use and effective means of security and employee identification at Modern Machine Works.
How You’d Set This Up Today
Shop-floor data collection like this now typically runs on Windows 10/11 industrial panel PCs. To use WinWedge you would need RS232 barcode scanners connected to your PC’s USB port via an RS232 to USB converter cable (FTDI or Prolific). WinWedge’s role is unchanged: it is still the software layer that makes any scanner or gauge feed any Windows application — MES, ERP terminal, time-and-attendance system, or Excel sheet — with stamps and formatting applied on the way in. Where terminals are spread across a plant network you can connect barcode scanners to the Ethernet either directly or via TCP-Com. The networked data can then be fed into your Windows software on any PC on your network by TCP-Wedge which is part of WinWedge Pro.
Collecting Data from Your Own Instruments?
Connecting scanners, gauges, or scales to your shop-floor software? With WinWedge you use simple set up menus – no custom code required. Download a free WinWedge or WinWedge Pro (TCP-Wedge) trial or call (800) 722-6004 — our engineers have interfaced factory equipment and barcode scanners for three decades.