Plumbing shops cannot track parts inventory across trucks, losing $5K-15K/year to waste

A typical plumbing service company runs 5-20 trucks, each carrying $2,000-5,000 in parts inventory (fittings, valves, supply lines, wax rings, PVC/copper/PEX stock). Most shops have no real-time visibility into what is on which truck. When a technician uses a part, it may not be logged until end-of-day (or never). The result: trucks run out of common parts mid-job forcing a supply house run (30-60 minutes of unbillable time), or they carry excess inventory that expires, corrodes, or gets lost. Some technicians show unusual usage patterns suggesting waste or theft with no detection mechanism. Plumbing shop owners estimate $5K-15K annually in shrinkage, wasted supply runs, and over-purchasing. This persists because plumbing parts are low-cost individually ($0.50-15 per fitting) but high-variety (hundreds of SKUs across pipe types, sizes, and fittings), making barcode-level tracking feel disproportionately expensive relative to item value. Most field service software focuses on scheduling and invoicing, not granular truck-level inventory.