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Almost everything we buy is made overseas. Unless you’re in China, most products you use daily are made outside your country’s borders. Trillions of finished goods moving cheaply around the world - we call this Globalisation, and it’s all thanks to one surprisingly recent idea: Shipping Containers. Here’s the story: 👇👇
The Wait: 😤
In 1937, Malcolm McLean was a truck driver dropping off cargo from North Carolina to New Jersey. When he got to the docks at NJ, he was forced to wait for hours in his hot truck as the dockers carried cargo from other trucks onto ships, one loose crate, barrel, or sack at a time (ie. breakbulk cargo). This was the practice at the time. Sailing from New York to Europe might take 12 days, but the loading/unloading at the docks would take another 7 days. Port fees and dock workers accounted for 60-75% of the shipping costs. Plus, missing inventory was rampant as loose goods were easily lost or stolen. Bored out of his mind, he sought to one day change the way shipping works.
The Sail: ⛵
Since then, McLean had built up McLean Trucking Co., one of the biggest trucking operations at the time. He was still dreaming of a standardised container system that could be easily moved and stacked across various transportation modes. In 1955, he acquired a shipping company and bought 2 ships, repurposed to carry his newly designed standardised containers. In 1956, his ship went on its maiden voyage, successfully carrying 58 of his containers.
The Box Revolution: 📦
With his idea proven true, McLean went on a marketing tour to convince key players in the logistics world to join him. Containers lowered 25% transportation costs, has safer storage, cheaper insurance and lower port labour costs. McLean’s pitch was a hit. By 1970, there were 27,000+ of his containers, carried by 36 ships over 30 major ports. Today, the world is using his standardised container design in ships, trucks, trains, planes and even as houses & offices.
What used to take 7 days at the docks now only takes a few hours, save for our current global supply chain issue, but that’s a story for another time. By thinking outside the box, McLean thought of a metal box that revolutionised our global economy.
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