Whether to repair a container or replace it looks like a judgement and is actually arithmetic. Four numbers decide it: the cost of the repair, the remaining life the repair buys, the cost of a replacement, and the life of a replacement. Where fleets get this wrong, it is usually because the repair’s handling cost has been left out of the calculation.
The comparison
A repair is worth doing when its cost divided by the life it buys is less than the replacement cost divided by the replacement’s life. Both sides are a cost per year of service. Where a repair costs five and buys two years, that is two and a half per year. Where a replacement costs twenty-five and lasts ten years, that is two and a half per year as well – and at that point the two are equivalent and other factors decide.
The handling cost that gets missed
A container has to be identified as damaged, taken out of service, moved to a repair area, repaired, moved back and returned to stock. Those movements are usually manual and they are usually more expensive than the repair material. Where a repair programme is evaluated on material cost alone, it looks far better than it is, and the programme expands to repair containers that should have been scrapped.
What the repair buys in practice
Not the container’s original life – a repaired container is older and slightly weaker, and it will fail again. Where a fleet has data on how long repaired containers last, that is the number to use. Where it does not, a reasonable starting assumption is that a repaired container delivers a fraction of a new one’s remaining life, and the fraction can be refined once the marking and records are in place.
Where replacement wins clearly
Where the damage is deformation, large-area material loss, or a shattered corner – the cases that cannot be repaired properly at all. Where the container is already old and near the end of its expected life. And where the repair is to a load-bearing area and the container will then go into an automated system with tight tolerances. In all three, replacement is the answer and repairing is a false economy.
Where repair wins clearly
Where the damage is a simple crack in a non-critical area, where the container is young, and where the repair is a standard operation done in minutes. Those are the bulk of repairable cases in most fleets, and they are worth doing – the alternative is scrapping a container with most of its life left because of a small crack.
The fleet-level view
Deciding per container is right in principle and slow in practice. A fleet-level rule – repair these damage types, scrap those, and repair no container more than twice – gives nearly the same result at a fraction of the decision cost. Where a programme is being set up, the rule comes first and the per-container judgement applies only to the ambiguous cases.
What to measure over a year
Containers repaired, containers replaced, cost of each, and how long the repaired ones lasted. Four numbers, and after a year they show whether the rule is set at the right point. Where repaired containers come back quickly, the rule is too permissive; where the scrap pile contains containers with minor damage, it is too strict. The damage categories are set out in the damage modes that end a container.
What this means for the next order
The pattern in the repair data is the best available input to the next container specification. Where a fleet repairs hundreds of cracked corners a year, corner reinforcement on the next order removes that cost entirely, and it usually costs less in material than the repair programme costs in labour.