How Lawrence David Cut Gas Cylinder Costs by £20k a Month

Gas cylinders are one of those business assets that quietly become more expensive the longer they go missing.

Lawrence David discovered they were paying significant ongoing rental fees for cylinders that had been misplaced, forgotten about, or left sitting unused across their sites. After implementing a simple barcode tracking workflow with Orca Scan, they reduced their active cylinder inventory from more than 500 cylinders to 180 and are now saving an estimated £20,000 per month.

And the whole tracking process took less than 30 minutes to set up.

The challenge

For businesses that rely on gas cylinders every day, keeping track of them is surprisingly difficult.

Cylinders constantly move between workshops, storage areas, vehicles, contractors and job sites. Over time, it becomes harder to know:

• Which cylinders are currently on site
• Which are empty or inactive
• Which need returning
• Who last used them
• Where they were last seen

Because most suppliers charge ongoing rental fees for every bottle assigned to a business, lost or forgotten stock quickly becomes expensive.

For Lawrence David, empty cylinders were remaining on-site for long periods, while rental charges continued to build in the background. They had limited visibility, no simple way to track movements, and relied heavily on supplier reports to understand what inventory they had.

A little bit of context

Like many manufacturing businesses, Lawrence David relies heavily on gas cylinders for welding and fabrication processes.

Despite how valuable they are, the team were managing its cylinders manually, relying on paperwork and supplier records to keep track of them.

The challenge is that cylinders are constantly moving between teams, sites and storage locations, making it incredibly easy for bottles to become misplaced, forgotten about, or left unused while rental charges continue to accumulate.

There are also important safety and compliance considerations. Knowing the exact location of gas cylinders on-site is critical during emergencies and helps businesses maintain better control over expired, damaged or recalled cylinders.

The solution

Having already improved their weekly stocktakes with Orca Scan, the team at Lawrence David knew the platform could manage gas cylinders as well.

Using Orca Scan, the team at Lawrence David created a Gas Cylinder tracking solution - a simple workflow to track every bottle using the supplier barcodes already attached to the cylinders.

Now, whenever a cylinder moves, it’s scanned.

Using Orca Scan, the team can:

• Assign cylinders to locations or departments
• Track movements between teams and work areas
• Record who scanned a cylinder and when
• Complete fast monthly stocktakes
• Maintain a full audit trail for every bottle

Because Orca Scan automatically records timestamps, users and scan history, the team instantly gained visibility, traceability and accountability across the entire process.

The best bit? The whole system was set up in under 30 minutes with no downtime. The team could continue using the existing supplier barcodes without relabelling equipment or changing workflows.

Was it successful?

Once the team began properly tracking cylinders, they quickly identified unused, duplicate and forgotten stock that could be returned to suppliers.

The result? Lawrence David reduced its active cylinder inventory from more than 500 bottles to 180 and is now saving an estimated £20,000 per month in rental and recovery costs.

The solution proved so successful that Lawrence David partnered with Orca Scan to develop a dedicated Gas Cylinder Tracking solution for other businesses facing the same challenge.

Thank you 🙏

A huge thank you to Darren and the entire Lawrence David team for continuing to trust Orca Scan to support your operations. We love working with you to solve real operational challenges and make your day-to-day work just a little easier.