Cage Fitting and Assembly: What the Service Includes

10 September 2026

When a business takes delivery of a new or refurbished roll cage fleet the equipment rarely arrives ready to deploy. Cages may need castors fitted to a specific size or colour specification. Shelves, integral shelf rods or protective accessories may need installing before the fleet goes into service. For operations running Asset Performance Management (APM), each cage needs a barcode or RFID tag attached before it can be tracked through the system.

Cage fitting and assembly is the process of preparing a roll cage fleet for live use. Distribution Maintenance carries out this work at our facilities in Harlow and Grantham, or on customer sites where the volume and logistics make site work more practical.

This page explains what the service covers and when it makes sense to use it.

What cage fitting and assembly includes

Castor fitting and replacement

Castors are the most frequently replaced component on a roll cage. They wear from constant use, seize from debris in the bearing, or simply need to be changed to a different specification when a fleet is redeployed to a new environment.

We supply and fit castors across a wide range of sizes and specifications:

• 125mm castors — the standard size for most A-frame roll cages and cage trolleys
• 4-bolt fitting — the most common attachment type for roll cage bases
• Style and colour options — for fleets that need colour-coded castors to identify cage type, ownership or route
• Swivel and fixed — swivel castors for manoeuvrability, fixed rear castors for directional control
• Quiet-running rubber castors — for laundry, hotel and healthcare environments where noise is a factor

When fitting new castors to an existing fleet, we inspect the base frame at the same time. Castor mounts that are bent or cracked are repaired before the new castor is fitted — a new castor on a damaged mount will fail quickly.

Shelf and accessory installation

Several accessories need to be fitted to a cage before it can be used as intended:

Integral shelves — a hinged metal rod shelf that folds down inside the cage to create a mid-level storage tier. Used where two layers of product need to be separated, or where smaller items would otherwise fall through the base.

Straps and retention hooks — roll cage straps (DMA 2) with black nylon hook ends are fitted to the inside of the cage frame to retain product during transit.

ID plates and name plates — engraved identification plates secured to the cage frame for fleet tracking and loss prevention.

Covers and liners — weatherproof cage covers (DMA 3A) and internal liners (DMA 3B) fitted prior to deployment.

Barcoding and RFID tagging for APM

For businesses running the Distribution Maintenance Asset Performance Management (APM) system, each cage in the fleet needs a scannable barcode or tag attached before it enters the tracking system.

What cage barcoding involves:

• Label selection — choosing the right label format and material for the environment (warehouse, outdoor, laundry, chilled)
• Position standardisation — attaching every label at the same position on every cage
• System registration — each barcode registered in the APM dashboard from day one
• Scan testing — every tagged cage test-scanned before leaving our facility

Full fleet preparation

For businesses taking delivery of a large fleet — new equipment from our manufacturing partners or a refurbished fleet from our repair centre — we can carry out all fitting and assembly work before the cages leave our facility.

• Castor fitting to your specification
• Shelf and accessory installation where required
• Barcoding and APM registration
• Quality check on every unit before dispatch
• Delivery to your site or sites, or collection by your transport

On-site cage fitting

For operations where sending cages off-site is not practical, our mobile engineers can carry out fitting and assembly work on your premises.

On-site cage fitting is commonly used for:

• Castor replacement programmes — cycling through a large fleet during quieter periods
• Barcoding programmes — tagging an existing fleet in situ as part of an APM rollout
• Accessory retrofitting — adding shelves or straps to a fleet already in service

When to use the cage fitting service

When taking delivery of a new fleet — your fleet arrives ready to use rather than requiring your own team to spend time on preparation work.

When rolling out APM — barcoding a fleet after deployment is significantly harder than barcoding it before.

When refurbishing an existing fleet — when your cages come to us for roll cage repairs and refurbishment, we carry out fitting and accessory updates at the same time.

When changing castor specification — operations moving from one environment to another often need a different castor type.

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