More history on the box that changed the world on its 60th birthday
April 26, 2016 7:27 PM   Subscribe

On April 26th 1956, a converted World War II tanker, the Ideal-X left the Port of Newark, New Jersey. Five days later, it arrived in Port Houston, Texas, with 58 35-feet (8 feet wide by 8 feet high) containers, along with a regular load of 15,000 tons of bulk petroleum. Malcom McLean had started something big, changing the long tradition of shipping goods on ships. Before that, cargo handling was almost as labor-intensive after World War II as it had been in the mid-1800s. After McLean's innovation, shipping was transformed by this, one of the most important innovations in the global markets of production and trade (Google books preview), though that's not without its complications.

Malcom McLean was 20 when he started his first transport business with one truck, which grew to five for hauling cotton bales, and eventually branched out and owned 1750 trucks and 37 transport terminals, the fifth largest truck transportation business in the whole of America. He sold that business to start his next, an effort to shift heavy truck loads into standardized cargo containers, to save money and speed up the on- and off-loading of cargo.

Containerization started well before McLean came along, but his work with engineer Keith Tantlinger, who convinced McLean to give the patented designs to industry, and thus began international standardization of shipping containers.

Sixty years later, a significant part of the world seems to be shaped around moving this internationally standardized shipping container, commonly referred to as a twenty-foot equivalent unit, or TEU. In the three decades following the work by McLean and Tantlinger, ships and ports changed dramatically to accommodate the shift to containerized transport. Ships were now designed specifically to carry more and more of these standardized containers, and ports changed, too. San Francisco and Manhattan could not compete with other ports with deep-draft container ships.

With an estimated 32.9 million TEU world-wide in 2012, people are looking for other things to do with these sturdy boxes. Container homes are not uncommon, but they're not without their problems, just as there are pros and cons for container-inspired emergency housing. They have been used for pop-up shops (previously) and containered clinics.

Containers aren't stuck in the past. There are new designs, including some made with stronger, lighter materials, and others that can be collapsed to allow for more empty containers to be carried in the less space, as empty containers are shipped around the world following supply and demand.

We'll wrap this up with an article on container loss, which is generally small number given the total volume moving around the world, and 8 lesser known facts about the modern cargo ship. Happy shipping container day!
posted by filthy light thief (43 comments total) 56 users marked this as a favorite
 


This is one of my favorite topics, especially now that I live in Oakland. Fantastic post, thank you!
posted by sandettie light vessel automatic at 7:30 PM on April 26, 2016


"Amateurs talk about tactics, but professionals study logistics."
posted by Slothrup at 7:49 PM on April 26, 2016 [6 favorites]


Even though they normally measure in TEUs, few containers these days are actually 20' long, they're mostly 40'.
posted by Chrysostom at 7:57 PM on April 26, 2016


The proposed container buildings in the "not without their problems" link look so similar to The Stacks described in Ready Player One that I have to assume it's deliberate. One has a derelict crane on top!
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 8:25 PM on April 26, 2016


I have seen some great garage/shops built out of containers, but I've never yet seen a container house that tempts me.
posted by Dip Flash at 8:29 PM on April 26, 2016


A fun book to read about currents and containers is following the travels of a loss container of rubber ducks, is Moby Duck by Hohn.
posted by jadepearl at 8:30 PM on April 26, 2016


I gotta be honest I'm thankful for the container and thus the container ship because sailing on a container ship is probably the only way I'm ever going to get to sail around one of the Capes in winter. ONE DAY.
posted by barchan at 8:32 PM on April 26, 2016 [3 favorites]


And the Longshoremen hated it, HATED it. I remember all the strikes and other problems they caused in the 1960's trying to prevent this revolution.
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 8:33 PM on April 26, 2016


For what it's worth, "Port Houston" in the first link (and replicated in the body of this post) is almost certainly a typo. Houston is a city, which happens to have a port known as the Port *of* Houston.
posted by BrandonW at 8:52 PM on April 26, 2016


Chocolate Pickle: "And the Longshoremen hated it, HATED it. I remember all the strikes and other problems they caused in the 1960's trying to prevent this revolution."

Well, yeah. Because they thought - correctly - that it would put a lot of them out of work. What would you have done in their shoes?
posted by Chrysostom at 8:55 PM on April 26, 2016 [4 favorites]


Omega Tau Podcast: Ep. 146 - Container Shipping

This episode is a conversation about the world-wide container shipping infrastructure with Martin Clausen, the former general counsel of Maersk and Nicolas Guilbert from Ange Optimization. We discuss the history of containers, routing, some details about the ships and container terminals as well as a brief outlook on the future of the container shipping industry. In part two we take a deeper look at optimisation of container stowage on ships and network planning.
posted by snuffleupagus at 9:01 PM on April 26, 2016 [3 favorites]


A great post, but it really should include an explicit link to this great book on the topic, The Box: How the Shipping Container Made the World Smaller and the World Economy Bigger.
posted by twsf at 9:08 PM on April 26, 2016 [9 favorites]


Me, I hate the cans. Sure, they're less labour intensive at the port, but not when they get to the warehouse inland. Shipping containers are loaded and unloaded by hand, stuffed floor to ceiling without a fingers-width to spare to maximize value. So while one person with a fork truck can unload a 53 foot trailer in 20 minutes thanks to that other revolution in shipping, the pallet, it takes 2-3 people 4 hours or more of back breaking labour to do one 40 foot can.
posted by rodlymight at 9:20 PM on April 26, 2016 [7 favorites]


RodlyMight, yes, unloading the container is a pain. But you aren't tying up an expensive dock while you're doing it.

Chrysostom, I certainly understand why the Longshoremen resisted the change. But I have no sympathy for them, in part because their union has long been one of the most corrupt.
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 9:25 PM on April 26, 2016


Pallets are also a fascinating industrial logistics / equipment finance story for nerds of that sort.
posted by MattD at 9:58 PM on April 26, 2016


Pallets are also a fascinating industrial logistics / equipment finance story for nerds of that sort.

The pallet and the shipping container both revolutionized shipping in the same way (though on different scales) - by transforming bulk goods of various shapes and sizes into standardized units that could be handled more or less in the same manner. The whole pallet industry is interesting - if you're ever wandering through Costco, you'll usually see four types of pallets:

White: known as whitewood pallets, these are what most people think of when they hear pallet. There's a whole industry devoted to building and refurbishing these pallets.
Blue: These are pallets made and rented out by a large pallet brokerage firm called CHEP. Unlike whitewood pallets, CHEP only rents their pallets, and does expect them back, putting them at loggerheads with the whitewood refurbishers.
Red: Similar to the CHEP pallets, these are owned by a smaller brokerage called PECO.
Black: These are plastic pallets from IGPS, yet another pallet brokerage. Besides being made of plastic, these have RFID tags in them, allowing the shipment to be tracked while en route.
posted by NoxAeternum at 10:15 PM on April 26, 2016 [10 favorites]




Most articles don't mention the primary reason shippers and ports adopted containerization was the labor cost of and cargo theft by Longshoremen. Did this one?
posted by Homer42 at 11:27 PM on April 26, 2016


Most articles don't mention the primary reason shippers and ports adopted containerization was the labor cost of and cargo theft by Longshoremen. Did this one?

The labor costs are right in the OP, so sort of?

I'm not sure how far you can take the strong version of the claim. The story McLean tells was about transit time and throughput, not union costs, and ports that adopted containerization often did it because they didn't have much shipping to begin with and it was a great way to grab business from more established ports (so for example Oakland and Seattle and Long Beach obliterated San Francisco.) Existing shipping companies who dealt with the Longshoremen were often the most resistant to change, as they were managed by "old salts" who thought of shipping lines as maritime ventures rather than an interchangeable leg in an industrial transportation network, no more romantic than driving a truck (which was McLean's background.) And of course in practice the Longshoremen often delayed containerization--though ultimately they were one of the few "disrupted" labor forces to negotiate a decent pay out when they were obsoleted. [Everything here is pretty much straight from The Box mentioned by twsf which I recommend and spends like half its time on the Longshoremen.]

Don't get me wrong; I agree they increased costs so they certainly provided incentives for bypassing them. But you could've paid them minimum wage (even assuming people were willing to do the hard and dangerous work for next to nothing) and still seen the same change.
posted by mark k at 12:16 AM on April 27, 2016 [1 favorite]


You can absolutely load and unload a container with a fork or pallet jack if you do your palletisation right.
posted by deadwax at 3:20 AM on April 27, 2016


Container ships continue to have controversy and are getting bigger. The size of the Benjamin Franklin is mind mindbogglingly huge.
posted by sammyo at 3:55 AM on April 27, 2016 [1 favorite]


> I have no sympathy for them, in part because their union has long been one of the most corrupt.

Why not have sympathy for them and wish ill on the bad actors instead? Or is this a peacetime application of the Roman military ethos of destroying the village if it shelters one horse thief?
posted by ardgedee at 4:15 AM on April 27, 2016 [2 favorites]


But I have no sympathy for them, in part because their union has long been one of the most corrupt.

Without "theft", "corruption", and "inefficiency," there would be no middle class. Indeed, the American middle class is a market inefficiency, albeit one that is rapidly being innovated out of existence
posted by Captain l'escalier at 4:31 AM on April 27, 2016 [5 favorites]


Because they thought - correctly - that it would put a lot of them out of work. What would you have done in their shoes?

Ah, shoes. Back in the day, shoe importers were reduced to shipping all left and all right in seperate shipments. Because that made them less interesting to steal. The liquor industry also found that containers meant fewer missing bottles.
posted by BWA at 5:16 AM on April 27, 2016 [1 favorite]


Me, I hate the cans. Sure, they're less labour intensive at the port, but not when they get to the warehouse inland. Shipping containers are loaded and unloaded by hand, stuffed floor to ceiling without a fingers-width to spare to maximize value. So while one person with a fork truck can unload a 53 foot trailer in 20 minutes thanks to that other revolution in shipping, the pallet, it takes 2-3 people 4 hours or more of back breaking labour to do one 40 foot can.

Interesting. I had thought containers were usually filled with loads on pallets, and unloaded by forklift -- and that they were packed just tightly enough to permit that. Guess not?

Is it just vertical room to work that prevents the use of a forklift? A probably ridiculous question: if a container's roof were to have hinged segments/leaves, or segments that bolt on and are removable, or maybe just able to tilt up a few feet in front (hinged in back, chain shackles in front for an external crane or winch, etc) would that solve the unloading problem?

You can absolutely load and unload a container with a fork or pallet jack if you do your palletisation right.

Ah ha.
posted by snuffleupagus at 5:32 AM on April 27, 2016


Well, yeah. Because they thought - correctly - that it would put a lot of them out of work. What would you have done in their shoes?

Why, learn a programming language, of course!
*tips fedora*
posted by entropicamericana at 5:53 AM on April 27, 2016 [4 favorites]


Don't tip Fedora, tip CentOS. :P
posted by snuffleupagus at 6:10 AM on April 27, 2016 [1 favorite]


Excellent post, thank you flt! And one more link for you ...
posted by carter at 6:25 AM on April 27, 2016 [1 favorite]


Another link from a different side of the cargo transport world. (I think I grabbed that from the blue years ago - covers accidents and what not with container ships, etc).
posted by k5.user at 6:43 AM on April 27, 2016


I certainly understand why the Longshoremen resisted the change. But I have no sympathy for them, in part because their union has long been one of the most corrupt. posted by Chocolate Pickle

Please don't confuse the two very different major dock workers' unions. The west coast ILWU split away from the east coast ILA in 1936. (My father belonged to the WWII Marine Cooks and Stewards Union, by the way.)
posted by Carol Anne at 6:53 AM on April 27, 2016


Also when you're stuffing your container for international shipment, please make sure you use wooden pallets and crates that are IPSM-15 certified, and when the cans arrive from overseas, make sure you do a thorough C-TPAT inspection.
posted by Standeck at 7:11 AM on April 27, 2016 [1 favorite]


You can absolutely load and unload a container with a fork or pallet jack if you do your palletisation right.
In 20 years I don't think I've ever seen a container from overseas with a palletized load. Loaded them that way for domestic shipments, but never ever from overseas. That 5 inches is lost money.
posted by rodlymight at 7:24 AM on April 27, 2016 [2 favorites]


sammyo: Container ships continue to have controversy and are getting bigger. The size of the Benjamin Franklin is mind mindbogglingly huge.

And ports around the US (and world) are vying to deepen and widen to support these growing megaships, which are too big for the Panama Canal, even after its newest expansion is complete. Still, US Gulf and East Cost ports are want to get the New Panamax ships as if that's the newest thing in international trade.


rodlymight: Shipping containers are loaded and unloaded by hand, stuffed floor to ceiling without a fingers-width to spare to maximize value. So while one person with a fork truck can unload a 53 foot trailer in 20 minutes thanks to that other revolution in shipping, the pallet, it takes 2-3 people 4 hours or more of back breaking labour to do one 40 foot can.

> You can absolutely load and unload a container with a fork or pallet jack if you do your palletisation right.

In 20 years I don't think I've ever seen a container from overseas with a palletized load. Loaded them that way for domestic shipments, but never ever from overseas. That 5 inches is lost money.


Yep, multiply that 5 inches by 18,000 TEUs and you have a significant cut in volumes moved. And when it's already taking 17 - 28 days (according to Sea Rates' Port Distance/travel time web app), someone has figured out it's worth the added hours to days for unpacking a stuffed container. (Then again, it seems many companies are overlooking hidden costs to offshoring production, so people might see that they can squeeze more in a can and aren't realizing that it would be a net gain by palletizing shipments.)
posted by filthy light thief at 7:37 AM on April 27, 2016


You can absolutely load and unload a container with a fork or pallet jack if you do your palletisation right.
In 20 years I don't think I've ever seen a container from overseas with a palletized load. Loaded them that way for domestic shipments, but never ever from overseas. That 5 inches is lost money.
This is so at odds with my experience I found it quite surprising. I work in chemicals logistics so all cargo is either cans or drums on pallets or IBCs, or in bulk in an isotank, which is what I look after.

Similarly in the chemicals industry 20fts are more common. This is due to the weight/cube ratio, whatever goods you are familiar with presumably hit the cubic capacity before the weight, with bulk liquids/powders the opposite is true.

Also chemicals are classed by hazard and packing group, which determines how they must be shipped and labelled, so it's a very different kettle of fish*.

*NB: If you are shipping actual kettles full of fish then different regulations apply.
posted by Acey at 9:07 AM on April 27, 2016 [2 favorites]


So while one person with a fork truck can unload a 53 foot trailer in 20 minutes thanks to that other revolution in shipping, the pallet, it takes 2-3 people 4 hours or more of back breaking labour to do one 40 foot can.

God yes. I've helped unload several containers, and it's exhausting, mind-numbing work.

A partial solution I've seen is to use a pallet jack to bring a pallet into the container. Product is loaded on to the pallet, which is taken outside the container to a forklift, which takes the pallet to its final warehouse location. The pallet jack can easily be maneuvered up into the container, and it's much safer for people to work around than a forklift. Saves a ton of walking back and forth. It's especially useful when the product is just going to be shipped right back out again to distributors on those same pallets.

This is so at odds with my experience I found it quite surprising.

Generally anything that gets moved around in cardboard boxes will be packed wall-to-wall, floor-to-ceiling.
posted by jedicus at 9:11 AM on April 27, 2016


A probably ridiculous question: if a container's roof were to have hinged segments/leaves, or segments that bolt on and are removable, or maybe just able to tilt up a few feet in front (hinged in back, chain shackles in front for an external crane or winch, etc) would that solve the unloading problem?

One of the links in the FPP led me to the (ridiculously-named) Cakeboxx container, which claims to solve this very problem.
posted by neckro23 at 9:15 AM on April 27, 2016 [1 favorite]


Yeah, I think what we're seeing here is that different segments of the transportation industry do thing very differently. I've worked with customers shipping lots of different stuff (mostly domestically) and you would be surprised how different things can be.
posted by Chrysostom at 9:18 AM on April 27, 2016 [1 favorite]


. . . shipping lots of different stuff. And yet it all fits into the same standardized box (pace, high-cube and open top), which is the beauty of the system and why it's become so ubiquitous.
posted by Standeck at 11:02 AM on April 27, 2016


Well, yes and no. There's also a whole world of specialized equipment - tankers and drop decks and double drops and goosenecks....
posted by Chrysostom at 11:04 AM on April 27, 2016


Ebbesmeyer, the scientist who pretty much thought of studying gyres with commercial flotsam, coauthored on a popular book on the subject, Flotsametrics. I found it way more informative than Moby Duck.
posted by clew at 12:23 PM on April 27, 2016 [1 favorite]


I wonder if packing a container without pallets is a result of Wal-Mart's business practices. First, they make others pay to do business with them (most notoriously they make the US government pay their employees with foodstamps and Medicaid). So these exporting companies don't have to pay to unload the containers so they don't care. Their labor costs for loading them (just as hard a job) are lower than they are in the US. The solution would be to require palletized shipments. I'm guessing the people negotiating deals don't spend much time on the loading dock though.
posted by Bee'sWing at 12:41 PM on April 27, 2016 [1 favorite]


FYI, the Port of Houston offers free tours of the ship channel if you're in the area and would like to see the descendants of those 1950s container ships--as well as plenty of refineries and gypsum piles and other remnants of the world's largest petrochemical facilities.

If you'd like to really geek out, read the Center for Land Use Interpretation's great description of the scale of it all.

If you're not in the area, apparently it's pretty common for US ports to offer free tours. Long Beach and Oakland both have them. Recommended!
posted by librarylis at 10:02 PM on April 27, 2016 [2 favorites]


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