A customer asked us in 2016 how we knew a cage was on its third life rather than its ninth. We did not. Six weeks later every cage leaving the yard carried an ID. This is what that actually involves.
At the gate
A unit arrives, crosses the scale, and gets photographed from six angles including the marking panel. If it already carries one of our IDs — and a growing share do, because we buy back a lot of what we sell — the existing file is reopened and the loop count increments.
If it is new to us, it gets a fresh ID. The format is three letters and five characters: a format prefix, then a sequence. Nothing clever, nothing encoded. The ID is a key, not a message.
What gets written down before it moves
- Weight, which flags residue before anyone opens a cap.
- Manufacturer plate data and build year.
- Last contents as declared, and whether an SDS came with it.
- Bottle condition: clarity, bulge category, odour.
- Cage condition: square, feet, welds, galvanising, modifications.
- The six photographs.
Through the bays
Each stage appends. The wash line writes category, chemistry, temperature and hold time. Repair writes what it straightened and what it welded. Rebottling writes the new bottle's serial and date. The leak hold writes a pass with a duration.
Nothing is overwritten. A grade that changes gets a new row with a date, not an edit, because the value of the file is that you can see the history rather than the summary.
The stencil
White, on the upper rail, next to our mark. It takes about thirty seconds. We use a stencil rather than a label because labels come off in a caustic wash, which rather defeats the purpose.
What it changed internally
Three things, all of them unglamorous. Graders stopped rounding up, because the file either says the bottle was replaced or it does not. Disputes became short, because the photographs exist. And we learned what our own fleet actually does — which is where the loop-count and lifespan data on this site comes from.
What it changed for customers
Regulated buyers can accept reused equipment when the history is documented. That is the whole unlock. Without a file, a used tote is a gamble that a quality manager cannot sign off. With one, it is equipment with a service record, which is a thing every quality manager already knows how to evaluate.