The first question of a business that calculates container loss is whether it is normal, but there is no comparable industry average: a closed-loop operation and an open distribution operation are not on the same scale. The comparison is made inside your own data.
Define loss first: containers still unlocated after the return window and reconciliation, divided by containers dispatched in the same period. For example, 400 containers left in March and 12 could not be located at the end of the window; the loss rate is 12/400, which is 3 percent. Count units not yet due and late returns separately, and do not write a damaged but returned container as lost.
Then compare in four places. The same period last year shows the trend, routes show which customer or route is the problem, container types show which equipment disappears more, and seasons show how the routine breaks at the peak. Route comparison is the most useful, because loss is not spread evenly: if half of it comes from one customer, the answer is to talk to that customer rather than change the whole system.
Count every quarter; an annual count reveals the loss after the cause is forgotten. Write the loss as money too: how many containers, how many lira, and what that money could have bought.
