Hand-unloaded, counted, documented —
so what arrived matches what was billed.
We devan ocean containers piece by piece, audit the count against your bill of lading as we go, and photograph any exception we find. You get a signed tally and a clean exception report the same day — minutes from the Port of Charleston, since 1998.
From sealed container to signed tally.
Same crew handles drayage, devan, and disposition — so the count and the chain-of-custody documentation come from one party, not three handoffs.
- STEP 01
Container delivered to dock
We dray the container straight from Wando Welch, NCT, or Leatherman to one of our dock doors. The container is sealed, photographed, and the seal number recorded against the BOL before it's broken.
- STEP 02
Hand-unload, piece by piece
Crew unloads floor-loaded or palletized cargo by hand. Each carton, drum, or piece is counted as it crosses the dock — no shortcut tallies from a packing list.
- STEP 03
Audit against the BOL
Counts are reconciled in real time against the bill of lading. Shortages, overages, mis-marks, and damaged pieces are flagged, photographed, and noted on the unload report.
- STEP 04
Disposition
Cargo is staged to rack, cross-docked to your outbound carrier, or palletized per your SOP. The signed piece-count tally and exception photos go to you the same day.
Four situations where a documented unload is worth doing right.
Cargo loaded loose to maximize cube — cartons stacked floor-to-ceiling — has to come out by hand. We're set up for it as a routine, not a one-off.
When the count on the bill of lading is the count of record for customs, claims, or downstream invoicing, a documented piece-count audit at devan is the right place to catch a discrepancy.
If there's any chance the cargo arrived damaged, photographed exceptions at devan are the cleanest evidence for a carrier or insurance claim. Catching it later is harder.
Multi-SKU or multi-PO containers benefit from a sort-as-you-unload pass so each SKU lands on its own pallet (or rack location) instead of being broken back out later.