Patent US 6,138,906

A simple, economical method of identifying the location of installed products. According to one embodiment, a machine readable indicia, for example a bar code, is associated with products from different product groups. Indicia is initially applied to each of the products in a manner such that the indicia is removable. As the end user installs those products, an installation team removes the removable indicia from the product or product package and adheres that indicia to an installation information sheet. The installation information sheet from that installation, as well as the installation information sheets from other installation sites, are then forwarded to a central location where the information on the machine-readable indicia is automatically read into an electronic database. Once the information from the machine-readable indicia has been entered into a suitable database, the information is readily accessible using a suitable software program.