Who invented cargo containers

The sealed cargo reduced the pilfering that went on at various stages of the cargo's journey and also reduced the labor required.

The Vietnam War aided his efforts to expand into Asia, and as more ports adapted to the containers, shipping was revolutionized. Nearly every imported consumer good imaginable owes its lower price to the container revolution. He produced more inventions in his lifetime, including a means of lifting patients from a stretcher to a hospital bed.

In , restless, McLean returned to shipping, introducing enormous "econoships" to carry cargo at the equator while smaller ships came and went from them, picking up and delivering containers. Shipping costs plummeted and it now became cheaper to manufacture goods on the other side of the world because shipping became so cheap. Since then it has revolutionised ports, rail networks, ships, cities and countries all over the world. The shipping container has been the single biggest catalyst of globalization.

Today, International Trade faces new challenges to keep up with demand. The problem lies with the sheer number of different parties that are involved in each shipment and the number of manual processes involved in the flow of information and documentation between these parties.

As the whole world around us has changed significantly over the past 10 years thanks to the digital revolution, the world of International Trade has been slow moving when it comes to keeping up with technology. Today we are seeing tech companies around the world dramatically improving the efficiencies of International Trade through innovative software and solutions for exporters, importers, ports and shipping lines all over the world. One single company can not streamline such a massive complicated industry.

The key to truly revolutionizing this industry is for these innovative tech companies to work together to make International Trade easy.

Subscribe to receive Global Trade articles articles, news and more. Sign In. Get Started. Following this initial success, the container shipping industry expanded rapidly, and by , container ships were capable of carrying 1, foot shipping containers.

Although the shipping container could be considered a relatively recent invention, its impact on the shipping and logistics industries as well as global trade has been tremendous. At Inevitably, technology has been developed to help handle such enormous vessels. For example, container cranes at Maasvlakte 2 in the port of Rotterdam are now un-staffed and almost entirely automated — quite a different scene to the manual work involved all those years ago.

When they come to the end of their time at sea, there are lots of ways a shipping container can be given a brand new lease of life and continue being useful for years to come. The History of the Shipping Container.