Preparing a mill surplus manifest

What the list is for

The reader is pricing material they have not seen, from a desk, with a spreadsheet and a set of photographs. Every question they have to send back is a day lost and a reason to look at the next lot instead. The manifest exists to answer the questions that paper can answer, and to point at photographs for the rest.

It is also a scope document. A list with line numbers defines what is being released. Material on the floor but not on the list stays where it is, and material added to the list after the fact is a new conversation. Both of those protections only work if the list is specific.

The columns

One row per reel or bundle, in a spreadsheet, exported as CSV as well as shared in place. The column set below is enough to price from. Add to it, but do not drop the last three.

Grouping, and why the order matters

Group by construction and voltage class before anything else, then by footage band, then by location. A line reading “miscellaneous cable, approximately” is not a line item; it is a reason to stop reading. Ten rows of identified product beat forty rows of unsorted stock, and they take less time to write.

Group a second time for freight. Reels that will leave on the same trailer belong together in the list even if they are different constructions, because the loading plan is part of what the reader is pricing. A group that needs a crane is a different proposition from a group one forklift can handle.

Put the best-documented reels at the top. The first ten rows set the reader’s expectation of the whole document, and a reader who trusts row one will read row sixty.

Version the document. A date and a revision letter on the first sheet, changed whenever a reel is added or withdrawn, prevent the commonest failure in surplus disposal: two spreadsheets with the same name circulating, and a trailer arriving for reels that were released four revisions ago.

Close with a summary: reel count, count by construction, count of empties, total gross weight and the date the list was compiled. Empties are worth listing separately so they are not counted as product or loaded by mistake.

Condition codes and honest description

Define a small closed set of codes once and use it for every reel. Five is enough: new and sealed; new but unwrapped or missing its tag; part reel with usable length; removed from service with unknown history; damaged or scrap only. Write the definitions on the first sheet of the workbook, so nobody has to guess what the letter meant.

Describe what is on the floor, not what the paperwork says should be there. Where the footage is an estimate, put the word estimated in the cell. Where the metal is unknown, write unknown rather than leaving the cell blank, because a blank reads as an omission and an omission reads as concealment.

Photograph anything the code does not cover. A code says a reel is a part reel; it does not say the outer wrap is split and the end cap is missing. Those two facts belong in the notes column and in frames six and seven of the photograph set.

Location, access and release authority

Location is three fields pretending to be one: the building, the position inside it, and how a trailer gets to it. Note the door width and height, the dock or ramp, the forklift capacity, whether the reel can be lifted by one machine, the overhead clearance under the crane and whether the yard is firm enough for a loaded trailer in wet weather. A site plan with the reels marked saves a phone call for every one of those.

Release authority is the field that gets left off and then stops a collection. Name the person, their title, the form they sign and the date. Surplus disposal, scrap authorisation and fixed asset retirement are three different documents in most plants, and a lot cannot move until the right one is signed.

Add the environmental line where it applies. Lead-sheathed cable, fluid-filled pipe cable and oil-contaminated material need a waste determination or a clearance from the plant’s environmental lead before they can be described as surplus. Saying so in the manifest is honest and it prevents a loaded trailer being turned back at the gate.