A method for electronically pairing a plurality of control units with a plurality of objects in an aircraft is provided. The method includes identifying a selected control unit from the plurality of control units that will control a selected object from the plurality of objects, placing a hand-held scanner in close proximity to a first machine-readable tag on the selected control unit to acquire a first unique ID for only the selected control unit, placing the hand-held scanner in close proximity to a second machine-readable tag on the selected object to acquire a second unique ID for only the selected object, and associating the first unique ID with the second unique ID to pair the selected control unit with the selected object.