What Happens in Container Depots?

The Journey of a Container at the Container Depot

Ever wonder what happens when a container enters a depot? The container goes through a short journey before it is stored indefinitely at the depot. Let’s take a look at the journey in our infographic below:

Overview of the Container's Journey at the Depot

Every container that is returned to a depot goes through a four step process:

Arrival: The container is transported by a prime mover to an assigned depot.
Inspection: The container goes through an inspection process to check for damages or washing needs
Documentation: Certain documents ,such as the lorry chit and the depot survey form, are filled by the surveyor and then processed by the depot.
Off-loading: Once the documents have been filled and processed, the container proceeds to be offloaded to the depot.

The Inspection Process

Upon arrival, depots will have to inspect the container for two main reasons:

Operational Damages – Damages that are incurred on the container during its use
Washing required – If the container is dirty and unusable unless cleaned

Surveyors, hired by the depots to inspect containers, goes through the inspection process which includes the 7 point inspection checklist.

A “DM” sticker stands for “damage”, and would be placed on a container with visible damage. An “AV” sticker represents available, and would be placed on a checked and acceptable container.

After inspection, depending on the status of the container after the inspection (“DM” or “AV”), the surveyor would proceed to fill up the necessary documentation accordingly.

Learn More! To learn more about the Container Inspection process, check out this blog post!

Documentation Needed

After inspection, the lorry chit is filled in by the surveyor and handed back to the driver. The driver will then bring it to the depot counter for the depot to process. He will then make payments if the container has damage or requires washing.

The depot survey form is for the depot’s keepsake and for recording purposes.

Offloading

After the depot processes the documentation, the driver proceeds to bring the container to the storage area where a forklift will offload the container from the prime mover’s trailer, to a stack of containers.

Usually, the containers will be stored by the shipping line i.e. containers belonging to CMA CGM will be stored together.

As the container is offloaded, the driver proceeds to get a new job, leaving the depot unladen. This concludes the journey of an empty container when it is returned to a depot.

At Haulio, we aim to help hauliers increase their efficiency by allowing them to pick up a new containers immediately after offloading one. This reduces the amount of empty trips a driver makes, thus increasing efficiency.