The Box by Marc Levinson
Book: The Box: How the Shipping Container Made the World Smaller and the World Economy Bigger
by Marc Levinson
Timeline
- 1800 First steamship
- 1879 Edison invents Lightbulb
- 1880 Refrigerated railcars
- 1920 NY Central introduces steel containers w dropdown * sides
- 1920 - 1930 Railroads use containers
- 1930 - 1940 Malcom McLean starts trucking business
- 1940 - 1950 US Navy builds Liberty & Victory ships
- 1949 Brown Industries builds first Shipping Container
- 1951 NJ Turnpike (NJTP) Opens
- 1952 Longshoremen convert from contractors into employees
- 04/26/1956 McLean Shipping ships first T2 container
- 1957 McLean Shipping ships first C2 container
- 1959 Matson C3
- 1960-1970 McClean makes progres in Puerto Rico
Notes
- Malcom McLean didn't invent containers, but he almost single handedly drove - for to lower cost of his transportation business - standardization.
- Took over 50 years first uses of some form of containers (~1920s) to become mainstream and ubiquitous. Things take time.
- Challenges faced:
- Govt regulations, price setting, subsidies
- Resistance and rent-seeking anti-competitive behavior from incumbents across modalities
- Lack of standards
- Helped reduce friction in multi-modal transportation options
- Lowered cost of logistics - labor and part
- Standards were introduced pre-maturely, but they helped speed up adoption and interoperability.
- Vietnam war & the Korean war helped with military being the key driver.
- Deregulation in railways and trucking helped participation from those modes.
- Oil prices had a large influence on design of container ships, especially aspects such as speed vs volume.