A yard with no cages
Your WEEE collections use cages. Your cable and non-ferrous collections use bulk bags and stillages. Drivers drop them at suppliers' sites and swap full for empty on collection. Nobody writes it down.
One Monday the yard has no empty cages. The office rings around. A school has six cages in its car park that nobody has collected, because it never rang. An electrical contractor has been using your stillages for storage. A small business closed and your bulk bags went with the building.
You order more cages. They are not cheap.
A few weeks later a driver collecting from a new customer notices a stack of cages with your name stencilled on them in the corner of the yard. The customer says they came with the unit when they moved in. Nobody in your office can say which supplier they were left with, or when.
Why returnable equipment disappears
Cages, stillages and bulk bags are small assets spread across many sites, and each move is too small to seem worth recording.
- Deliveries and returns are not recorded by the driver.
- Swaps on collection are not counted.
- Suppliers do not know how many they hold, or that they are yours.
- Equipment at closed or dormant suppliers is not recovered.
- Nobody reconciles what is out against what should be.
What lost equipment costs
Replacing cages, stillages and bulk bags is a steady cost that nobody budgets for. Running short means collections are delayed while equipment is found, or new stock is bought in a hurry.
Equipment at suppliers' sites that is not being used for your material may be used for someone else's. A supplier who switches to a competitor may keep your cages without anyone noticing.
Office time goes into ringing round to find equipment, with no record to start from.
Drivers lose time as well. A driver sent to swap a full cage who finds no empty ones on the lorry, because the yard ran out, makes a wasted trip, and the supplier waits another day with a full cage on site.
How we track equipment per supplier
What we build gives each supplier an equipment balance.
- Each type of equipment is recorded, with a code or tag on each item if you want item-level tracking, or counts by type if not.
- Drivers record deliveries and returns on their app at each site: how many of each type dropped and taken.
- Each supplier's balance updates automatically, showing how much of your equipment they hold.
- Suppliers holding more than an expected level, or with no collections for a period you set, are flagged for recovery.
- When a supplier closes or stops using you, a recovery job is created for all equipment on their balance.
- A periodic check lets drivers confirm counts on site, and differences are recorded.
| Supplier | Cages held | Last collection | Flag |
|---|---|---|---|
| School | From driver records | Date | Dormant, recover |
| Electrical contractor | From driver records | Date | Holding above expected |
| Closed business | From driver records | Date | Recovery job created |
A Monday with equipment balances
The office opens the equipment report. It shows the school holding six cages with no collection for weeks, the electrical contractor holding more stillages than their collections need, and the closed business with bulk bags on its balance. Recovery jobs are created for all three.
Drivers pick up the equipment during their rounds that week. The yard has cages again, and nobody orders new ones.
Is your returnable equipment disappearing?
- You regularly run out of cages, stillages or bulk bags.
- Drivers do not record what they drop and collect.
- You cannot say how much equipment each supplier holds.
- Equipment at closed suppliers is never recovered.
- You buy new equipment to replace what is sitting at suppliers.