Deciding what to do with customer-specific materials
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Keep customer-specific materials connected to the customer purpose they were made or bought for. A bespoke component, branded carton or drawing can need a permission decision even when the related production work has stopped.
Establish the actual agreement and relevant interests before changing the destination. This guide does not determine title, intellectual-property rights or a right to reuse a design. Refer those questions to the authorised parties and appropriate adviser.
Describe why the material is specific
Start with the item’s purpose and evidence. Does it carry a customer’s identity, fit only a particular order, depend on a supplied drawing or relate to unfinished work? Record that connection without publishing confidential details.
Use a short review with six questions:
- Which customer and order or project does the material relate to?
- What was agreed about its purpose, ownership or treatment, according to the actual documents?
- What work remains, and who is deciding its outcome?
- Which permissions or rights are uncertain?
- What possible destination is being discussed, and who must approve it?
- What evidence confirms the eventual authorised action?
The part-completed order paper helps establish whether the material still supports customer work. Do not call it surplus merely because the machine that used it is no longer running.
Compare outcomes without assuming permission
For a fictional example, the business holds cartons printed with a customer’s design. The customer might request them, a supplier might discuss an agreed return, or an adviser might need to consider another treatment. None of those outcomes follows just from the cartons being unused.
Record each option as proposed, declined, confirmed or awaiting advice. Identify any information the decision-maker needs, such as the original purchase reference or the message approving the design. Avoid making a guess about rights based on who paid the printing invoice.
Where the material is on a client site, use the site materials decision log. That guide adds the location and project interface; it does not replace the underlying permission enquiry.
Keep sensitive information out of disposal material
Do not circulate customer drawings, specifications or branded examples merely to ask whether the goods have value. Establish what information may be shared and with whom through the business’s approved process.
Once the authorised outcome is confirmed, update the stock commitment allocation. Keep a specific hold where ownership, permission or another relevant question remains unresolved. A permission about one batch should not be stretched to similar items from a different customer.
Tell UK Auction Group the confirmed disposal scope and any restrictions that affect the enquiry. Where a customer-specific group cannot yet be offered, identify it as excluded rather than burying the question in a broad description of remaining materials. Preserve the decision evidence with the business’s records.
Sources
This guide is general information and education only. Legal, tax, employment and safety decisions may need a qualified adviser who knows your situation. Read the disclaimer.