How one manufacturer 3x'd revenue on the same aluminum scrap — without changing a thing in the plant

A rebate is a price nobody quoted

The manufacturer ran a single-line extrusion operation producing a clean, consistent aluminum drop, and sold all of it to the hauler already collecting its general waste. The rebate arrived monthly as one figure with no tonnage breakdown, no alloy detail, and no reference to any published index. It had not been renegotiated in six years.

What the survey found

Outlast sampled the drop across a full production month and profiled it by alloy, form and contamination level. Three things came out of it:

• The drop was cleaner than the grade it was being sold as, and priced accordingly.
• Two alloys were being commingled at the baler that had separate, higher-value outlets.
• The nearest mill able to take the material direct was inside a one-day drayage radius.

What changed on the floor

Nothing. The sort happens at the baler, where the two alloys were already being handled separately before being combined for pickup. Outlast placed containers for each, set a pickup cadence against production volume, and took over scheduling.

The commercial change

1. Cost-plus pricing against a published index, with the margin share stated on every settlement.
2. Weight tickets and assay results returned per container, not per month.
3. Direct mill placement for the two separated alloys, brokered outlets for the remainder.

First container shipped eleven days after the survey closed. The program has run without a process change on the plant floor since.