Northbrook Container was established in 1992 as an affiliate of Northbrook Rail, a railcar lessor.  The division began as a lessor of managed tank containers for investors.  The customers and investors were located all around the world and usually had multiple locations that required servicing.

The initial management of the tank container fleet utilized an in-house developed DOS based programs fashioned on a rail car tracking/maintenance program that captured a minimum of technical information about the containers and was domiciled on a single computer. 

In 1995 the container affiliate was sold to one employee who invested in a proprietary developed windows based program.  The program included functions specially developed for tank containers that included individual unit information including ownership, technical specifications, statutory testing, historical location and accounted for the investor payments less operating cost.  Being a propriety design the program required separate licenses for each user and a service contract for technical support. 

As the number of investor groups, containers and customers grew there was a need for more timely information for the customers and investors.  However, the system still required direct access by one of the licensees to disseminate information.  With the growth of the internet the question was put to the developers “Could the system be converted to a web-based system without a requirement for licenses?”  Because the program is based on licensees or tracking who and how many users were accessing the program the answer was always “not economically.”

Being a company that had always been on the cutting edge of information systems, Northbrook looked around for a system that could take some basic exported information and make it available on their website.  Northbrook contacted BureauEye and discussed the feasibility of what they were trying to accomplish.  After several phone conversations BureauEye supplied a prototype web-accessed information program.  The program was launched on the Northbrook website and offered to several of Northbrook’s customers for testing.  The customers would connect to the Northbrook website via internet; access the information (read-only + the ability to print) through a user/password protected logon.  They were given total access to the technical and testing information regarding any container they were currently leasing or any container that was available for lease.  That meant that they could receive the information regarding any container leased from Northbrook at any time from any anyplace in the world without having to wait for someone to be in an office or location to answer their request.  After the test, the system was made available to all Northbrook’s customers at no additional cost.  Later the program was expanded to allow vendors – depots were the containers were located – to access any of the technical information about the containers.