Shipment verification

A method of verifying accuracy of a shipment, the method comprising:

• providing an electronic scheduling device including a memory configured to store a delivery schedule listing all items aboard a vehicle to be unloaded at a delivery location;
• providing an electronic scanning device for scanning identification tags located on items to be unloaded from the vehicle as they are unloaded;
• providing a control circuit coupled to the electronic scheduling device and the electronic scanning device, the control circuit including a programmable processor and configured to compare information from the identification tags scanned by the electronic scanning device to the delivery schedule stored in the memory of the electronic scheduling device to verify that correct items were unloaded from the vehicle;
• providing an output device configured to, only if the control circuit verifies that the correct items were unloaded from the vehicle, generate an identifier to be physically applied to a physical seal configured to interconnect handles of doors that provide access to a cargo area of the vehicle, and at least one of:
• apply the identifier generated by the output device to the physical seal configured to interconnect the handles of the doors that provide access to the cargo area of vehicle to indicate to users at a subsequent scheduled stop of the vehicle that a prior unloading operation of the items from the vehicle was correctly performed;
• encode the identifier generated by the output device onto a memory device of the physical seal;
• and
• print the identifier generated by the output device on a substrate configured to be attached to the physical seal.