Retread Casing Runbook

Do this first

The cap count on every casing changed from a number somebody typed to a number the system works out — intake reading plus every recorded return. About 4,000 casings already carry a count read off Fairfield's sheet, and the first time each one is touched, that number is re-established.

It is built so nobody's number moves. This check confirms that, and it takes a minute.

1. Open Casings, pick any casing from the Fairfield seed, and write down its Retread Count.
2. Open its card → Register Event… → choose Note → OK. A Note records an observation without moving the casing, so nothing else about it should change either.
3. Look at Retread Count again. It must be identical. The new Retread Count at Intake field above it should now show that same number.

Settled — the sticker is our number

Superior's return sticker prints Casing: and a barcode — 0006566287 on the samples we have. EBT's own casing numbers look identical: ten digits with leading zeros, and for a while nobody had established whether they were the same number.

So scanning a tyre as it comes back finds the casing already on the register. No second empty record, no cross-reference to build. If you were given an earlier copy of this runbook telling you to check this, you can skip it.

One barcode per re-cap is the part worth carrying around. The number identifies this trip, not the tyre for life — next time the same casing is retreaded it comes back under a different number, with nothing joining the two. That is why brand, size, DOT and cap count are captured every cycle, and why there is never a “we already know this one”.

While you have the sticker in hand, the WO number and the # 2 of 10 beside it are worth a photo. Together they are the same order-line the retreader bills against — which is how a casing gets tied to what it cost.

Test 1 — a load out and back

Use four real casings you can identify. You can type the numbers instead of scanning; a scanner just types them for you.

1. New manifest: set Retreader, Shipping From and Ship Date. Only configured retreaders appear in the lookup — not all 20,000 vendors.
2. Scan or type four casings into Scan Casing No. Each becomes its own line and the box clears itself. A barcode nobody has recorded is created, not refused.
3. Press Ship and confirm. All four read At Retreader. The position line shows shipped 4, back 0, still out 4.
4. Set Came Back On to today. Leave Scans Are on Retreaded.
5. Scan casings 1 and 2. Each moves to Back from Retreader and its Retread Count goes up by exactly one. Position reads back 2, still out 2.
6. Change Scans Are to Scrapped at Retreader and scan casing 3. It reads Scrapped and its count does not move — it came back, but it was never capped.
7. Scan casing 1 again. Refused, naming the date it already came back. Its count stays where it was.
8. Scan a casing that is not on this load. Refused, telling you to check you are on the right load.
9. Press Receive Remaining as Retreaded. Casing 4 only. Position reads shipped 4, back 4, still out 0.

Test 2 — what the customer sees

On staging, viewing as a customer who has casings.

1. Open Retreads → My Casings. Opens on All. The four tiles add up to the total, and no status reads Unknown.
2. Sort a column, use the Size / Make / Tread filters, search a casing number.
3. Find the casings you received in Test 1. They sit under Ready to return, and their Retreads figure is one higher than before.
4. Use Request delivery, pick casings, submit. Only appears when something is actually ready. You can only pick your own casings.
5. Try Request a pickup and Order casings — size and quantity, no casing numbers. Correct: those tyres are still on vehicles and nobody has stickered them yet.
6. As a staff user, open the admin action queue. All three requests are waiting there, each linking to the customer.

Test 3 — photographing every label, and what it costs

The return label carries things the retreader's own paperwork throws away — the DOT and how many times it has been capped. If we photograph it on the way back in, that history exists; if we don't, it is gone the moment the tyre leaves.

The open question is not whether it is useful. It is what it costs per tyre, and that is what this test measures. Nobody can answer it from a desk.

1. Open the manifest on your phone and start receiving as usual, with Photograph every label left off. Nothing looks different. Scan about twenty.
2. Check the Seconds per casing line that appears once you are a few scans in. It reads No photo 0.0s (n). That is the gap between scans, so it includes reaching the tyre — which is the honest baseline.
3. Turn Photograph every label on and carry on with the rest of the pile. After each scan the camera opens by itself, showing the casing number it is for. Frame the label, Take picture, and it returns to the scan box ready for the next.
4. Hit Skip on at least one — pick a label that is genuinely hard to read. It moves straight on. The casing is already received before the camera opens, so skipping costs the photo and nothing else.
5. Read both figures on the Seconds per casing line and write them down. Two numbers, e.g. No photo 6.2s (20) · With photo 8.9s (20). The difference is the answer.
6. Open two or three of those casings in BC and check the Label Photo field, then click it. The photograph opens, and it is legible enough to read the DOT and the cap count off. If it is not, the picture is worth nothing — say so.

The seconds figure is worked out on the phone and is not saved anywhere — it resets when you leave the page, so write it down before you close it. BC records the same thing independently in each casing's history, so it can be checked afterwards if the number looks surprising.

How a casing moves

Seven hops. Each one writes a permanent line in the casing's history, and the status you see anywhere — the register, the portal — is worked out from those lines rather than typed by anyone.

1. 1

   Collected from the customer

   Driver

   The tyre comes off a vehicle in the customer's yard. Drivers sticker it there and write the row in the binder — they always have.

   Now recordable on the driver's phone at /warehouse/pickups: one customer, one visit, scan each casing on. Nothing is mandatory — a yard is dark and the sticker sits inside the bead, so anything unreadable is left blank and finished at the branch.

2. 2

   Received at the branch

   Branch

   Sticker on, details read off the tyre: size, make, DOT date code, and the number of caps already on it.

   That cap reading goes in Retread Count at Intake. Everything after this is added to it automatically.

3. 3

   Onto a manifest

   Fairfield

   Scan the tyres going on the truck, or pull everything outstanding at a location.

   A casing already out at a retreader is refused — receive it back first.

4. 4

   Shipped

   Fairfield

   Press Ship, print the sheet, hand it to the driver.

   This is the only place a real send date gets recorded. Nothing seeded from the Fairfield spreadsheet has one, which is why the register cannot yet tell waiting at Fairfield from at Superior.

5. 5

   The retreader bills

   Purchasing

   Their work order or invoice is imported and matched to the casings by order line.

   Reconcile on the manifest reads shipped 61, billed 58 — three unaccounted for, per load.

6. 6

   Back from the retreader

   Fairfield

   Scan them in as they arrive — in ones and twos over weeks, not as a load.

   Retreaded adds a cap. Scrapped at Retreader records that it came back condemned and adds none.

   Optionally photograph each label as it comes in — see Test 3. The scan is what identifies the casing; the picture is only for what the label says.

7. 7

   Delivered to the customer

   Driver

   Back to the customer, and out of the outstanding position.

   Until this is recorded, the customer's portal still shows it as ready to return — which is why they chase.

When something is off

Four rules

• History is added to, never edited. Every hop is permanent on purpose. It is what lets the system prove where a casing was, and it is why a mistake is fixed with another entry rather than a rewrite.
• Condemned is not retreaded. They arrive on the same truck and mean opposite things. One adds a cap to the customer's tyre; the other is the end of that casing's life.
• Never guess a customer mapping. A blank can be filled tomorrow. A wrong one shows one customer another customer's tyres, on their own portal.
• Don't type over the cap count. It is worked out from the tyre's history and rebuilt every time. Corrections go on Retread Count at Intake, which is the reading a person actually made.