Beer kegs are valuable assets. When uncontrolled they will disappear into the hands of unscrupulous recyclers.

Disappearing kegs

A specialist brewer distributes kegs of its beer and lager to licensed premises across the country. Customers were not returning kegs. The brewery did not know where they were so was always buying new ones.

Requirements

1. To identify to contents of a keg and the customer.
2. To track kegs out of the depot.
3. To track returned kegs back into the depot.
4. To record the content and reason for each return
5. To track kegs sent for repair.

Solution

A unique barcoded label identifies each keg after filling.

The depot has several rugged mobile computers to scan:

1. Filled kegs.
2. Filled kegs out to customers
3. Empty kegs in from customers
4. Returns from customers.
5. Repairs to and from the workshop.

All keg details and movements are held on a server. An administrator maintains master data: operators, customers, return reasons.... Authorised users can modify the contents of a keg.

The company has several PCs to monitor the kegs and stock at the depot. Reports show which kegs are 'In Stock', ‘Out to Customer’, ‘Returned’ (and why), and 'To Repair'.

All reports and queries can be printed or saved to file as XLS, PDF or Word document.

Should a recall be necessary the Codetrack system knows which kegs were fillied with a batch, their location and their history.

Results

1. The company knows the location of all its kegs.
2. Customers return them promptly.
3. Unnecessary purchases of new kegs are largely eliminated.

Payback

The system paid for itself in a few months in administrative savings and by staunching keg loss.