Most construction companies don’t think twice about shrinkage. A tool goes missing or a delivery comes up short. It’s frustrating, but these incidents are usually chalked up as the cost of doing business. However, small issues are often a sign of something bigger.
Milwaukee Tool Fraud
The recently uncovered fraud case at Milwaukee Tool illustrates exactly how expensive this “visibility gap” can be. In 2024 and 2025, a single employee managed to siphon over $1 million in assets not by breaking into a warehouse, but by exploiting the time delay between order processing and payment cycles. He placed orders, allowed them to ship, and then deleted the transaction records before the back-office systems could lock them in.
The scheme succeeded because there was no real-time verification. There were no real-time checks and no immediate confirmation. It was a failure of data, not physical security.
The Invisible Supply Chain
While a million-dollar internal theft is an extreme example, the setup behind it is common in mid-to-large-size construction companies. Materials shipped directly to the job site often bypass warehouse controls. They enter a “blind spot” where the only record of receipt is a paper ticket signed by a foreman, which often sits in a truck for days before reaching the finance team.
During that gap, no one has a clear picture of what showed up, what didn’t, or what should have been questioned. Short shipments slip through and invoices get paid for materials no one can confirm were ever delivered. From the finance side, it becomes a guessing game.
The Real Damage Shows Up in Lost Time
The financial impact of this disconnect extends far beyond the replacement cost of a drill or a pallet of material. The real erosion of margin comes from operational friction.
When a crew is waiting on equipment or materials that never arrived as expected, productivity drops fast. A five-person crew sitting idle for a couple of hours costs far more in lost labor than the value of the tool they’re waiting on.
Then there’s the time spent by project managers, purchasing teams, and accounting chasing paper tickets, matching invoices, and trying to piece together what happened. Those delays add up quickly and quietly eat into margins.
Moving to Real-Time Control
Fixing this doesn’t require more forms, more phone calls, or more steps for the field. It requires a tighter connection between the job site and the ERP.
By implementing a barcode scanning process, deliveries are confirmed the moment they hit the site. That confirmation flows straight into the system and automatically matches the purchase order, the receipt, and the invoice.
If something doesn’t line up, it’s flagged immediately, payment stops, and the issue gets handled while it’s still small, before money goes out the door.
