What we run
We run the project. Scoping it against what you actually have to prove, sequencing it, taking the inventory at your site, collecting, and holding the custody record that ties the whole thing together. Most of a device retirement is decisions, reconciliation and paperwork rather than machinery, and that is the half we do.
We also write the specification. What each provider in the chain has to deliver, in what format, tied to serial numbers — so that what comes back is enforceable rather than a certificate you have to take on trust.
The processing steps — intake, sanitization, testing, grading, and routing to reuse or recycling — are performed in our own facility, under one contract and one custody chain.
Weigh that honestly. It means the chain does not change hands partway through your project and the records reconcile to each other by serial number rather than by count. It also means you are relying on one provider's controls, so audit them: ask for the sanitization plan, the exception procedure, and a sample certificate before you award. For an organization that has to competitively award anyway, that's usually the arrangement you were going to end up in regardless.
Who this is for
Whoever ends up answerable for the equipment after it's gone. That's usually IT, but the question arrives from finance when the register won't close, from security when there's an incident, and from procurement when a contract clause turns up.
What we handle
Phones, tablets and laptops, nationwide intake from a Colorado Springs base.
Why this has its own name
IT asset disposition is what happens to equipment after it stops being useful and before it stops being your responsibility.
It has a name of its own because three obligations land on the same pallet and each answers to a different person. The data's still your liability. The equipment's still on somebody's register. And the material is regulated the moment you decide it's waste.
It's a question that can surface long after the project closed, which is the wrong time to start looking for the answer.
How a project runs
Scope first. We start from what you have to prove, not from what's easiest to collect. If a contract clause, a retention policy, a grant condition or a solicitation is driving this, that document is the input. It decides the method and the documentation.
Collection, with the inventory taken at your site. Data-bearing devices get recorded by serial number before anything's loaded, and custody transfers on a signed manifest listing what left.
The order matters more than it sounds. If the first complete inventory happens at our end, the stretch between your dock and ours isn't documented, and that's precisely the stretch somebody will ask about.
Sanitization, matched to the device. A phone, a tablet and a laptop aren't one problem with three shapes. Method chosen per device and recorded per device, to NIST SP 800-88 Revision 2, with verification and validation as separate steps. How sanitization works
Assessment and grading. Devices with life left get tested and graded — after sanitization has been validated, never before. This is the step that decides whether something is a recoverable asset or a bag of commodities, so it runs against a published grading scale rather than a judgement call. How reuse and value recovery work
Recycling for what's genuinely finished. Routed for materials recovery through downstream vendors we qualify, with the verification records kept on file. What responsible recycling involves
Reporting. One closeout file rather than a folder of documents from different parties that don't agree with each other: your original retirement list, what we received and processed, and final disposition of every item including exceptions.
The second question worth asking, after the custody one
The checklist covers where a provider's chain of custody starts. This is the other end of it: what happens to your equipment after it leaves their building.
For a lot of this industry the answer involves at least one other company, and a certificate you were handed may describe a process somebody else performed. A certificate is only worth the custody chain behind it.
Ask it of us too, so here's our answer: the data comes off in our facility, and the certificate you receive is issued by the people who did that work. Not a reseller's certificate for a subcontractor's process. Where material moves downstream for materials recovery after that point, we qualify the vendor and keep the verification records, and we will tell you at scoping where the boundary of our own processing sits on your project.
We will never hand you a certificate for something we didn't do. That's the failure mode this section is warning you about, and it's worth choosing a chain where it can't happen.
What you get back
The collection manifest. What was picked up, counted against the list you supplied, discrepancies and exceptions noted at the moment they were found, seal numbers recorded, signed and dated at the point of collection, with the intake reconciliation alongside it.
The certificate of sanitization, per media item, carrying the NIST Section 4.6 fields.
The closeout file, reconciling your original list against final disposition of every unit. Agree the format before the first collection — that is most of why this goes well or badly.
Service area and scheduling
Based in Colorado Springs, taking inventory from organizations anywhere in the United States.
Collections are arranged and scheduled; nothing arrives unannounced. The published address is a mailing address rather than the facility, and there is no public drop-off at either.
We quote lead time and any minimum against your actual list rather than publishing a number here, for the reason given below: a duration quoted sight-unseen becomes a variation later.
What we can evidence, and what we can't
We hold no certifications today. When we do they'll be on the standards page with a certificate number you can look up, and not before. That page also sets out how to check a certification claim on any provider, which is worth doing before you appoint anyone.
Common questions
How's this different from electronics recycling?
Recycling is one possible ending. Disposition is the decision about which ending each device gets, plus the evidence. A recycler is measured on tonnage; a disposition provider on assets reconciled, data treated and value returned. A weight-only quote is pricing the material, which is worth knowing before you compare it against a quote that prices the asset.
Do we have to choose between protecting data and recovering value?
Usually not, and assuming you do is what costs money. A device can be sanitized and verified and still be worth something. The choice only gets forced when policy requires the medium itself destroyed, which is a policy reason rather than a technical one, and a perfectly good one.
How long does it take?
Depends on volume and on how much has to be inventoried on your site. We'll tell you when we've scoped it rather than before, because a duration quoted sight-unseen becomes a variation later.
Can you work to our documentation format?
Send it at scoping and we will tell you plainly whether we can match it, rather than promising in advance and reconciling afterwards. We produce one document, so there is not much of ours to bend — and if your format requires fields that only a processor can populate, we will say which ones and who has to supply them.