4. Case studies

4.1 Gas cylinders

The management of gas cylinder stocks and consignments is a difficult task, involving the management of deposits and returns, as well as the periodic maintenance of these assets, failure of which can have very serious consequences. A history of each cylinder must be maintained to ensure periodic replacement of seals, examination of cylinder condition, and removal from service at end-of-life. While it's not too difficult to mark the bottle indelibly, by engraving it in the metal for example, maintaining the history is more problematic. As the cylinders are returnable, they can be filled by...