We often write about the industrial gas supply chain, but this is our first feature that takes readers inside a distributorship for a day in the life of a cylinder. Middlesex Gases & Technologies generously offered to allow us to map the path of a high pressure cylinder through its facility, as it goes from empty on the dock to full in the ready-to-load holding area.
Middlesex fills many kinds of cylinders, but for purposes of this article, we single out the trail of the high pressure cylinder.
Middlesex Gases is a big distributor from a revenue standpoint, but one with a filling location in the confined spaces of the Boston area. President Bo Martin and Director of Sales and Marketing Ron Perry welcomed us to Middlesex’s headquarters in Everett, Massachusetts, and they explained that — like many independent distributors in urban areas — space is limited, so they have become masters at doing more with less. For example, while Middlesex does not have palletized cylinder fill — there simply isn’t enough running room — they do have sophisticated cylinder tracking technology, which keeps operations extremely efficient.
