The great conflicts of the 20th century may have shaped and popularised the trends towards palletising and containerisation of bulk shipping and transport, but these logistical trends have revolutionised world trade in peace time. Professor Harry Lovell* OAM FAIP presents a brief history of the birth of palletising and containerisation.
On 26 April 1956, fifty-eight truck bodies were hoisted onto an old tanker moored at Newark, New Jersey, USA.
The container revolution had arrived and five days later the tanker Ideal-X docked in Houston with its cargo, this time packed into the quasi containers.
On land, rail rather than road had been preferred for shifting large volumes of goods. With the termini of rail networks located in cities and ports, manual handling was necessary as products were loaded into box cars.
Meanwhile, on the roads large vehicles were developed but they still involved manual handling.
Historically, as early as 1885, rail in the USA had offered the opportunity to transport produce wagons to ferry landings opposite New York City.
In the 1950s flat top rail wagons were used to ‘piggy back’ trailers as a means of transportation for long distances.
All of these systems, however, involved multiple handling and there was no standardisation to facilitate the various systems.
Unit load concepts had been around for centuries with unitising items on a base and using a windlass to raise them, but in the 1939-1945 war the pallet, along with the fork lift truck, came to the fore. However, it was another war which saw this principle taken to the next step.
The Vietnam War saw the introduction of a logistical approach with the setting up of the First Logistical Command and the introduction of ‘unitised packaging’.
Previously, the movement of materials and supplies had created bottlenecks and the port facilities were inadequate for the volume of traffic. Pallets were dumped at random
on the docks, creating chaos. Containerisation was one answer, however, the military bureaucracy was divided over the concept.
Finally, in 1966, following a visit by the Secretary of Defence Robert McNamara, the nexus was broken and in 1967 the shipping company Sea Land provided seven ships and the project got underway.
This, then, was the genesis of containerisation. Subsequently, air transport adopted the concept thus unifying the distribution system.
The container and the associated handling systems have not only revolutionised distribution they have impacted on design, packaging material and reduced inventories.
They have facilitated the rapid distribution of products from the producer to the retail shelf with minimal handling and savings in materials.
* Containerisation: Key Dates
Late 1700s: Boxes similar to modern containers used for combined rail- and horse-drawn transport in England.
1939-1945: US Government uses small standard-sized containers during the Second World War. Widespread use of pallets.
1955: US trucking entrepreneur Malcolm McLean buys a steamship company with the idea of transporting entire truck trailers with their cargo still inside.
1956: The first of McLean’s rebuilt container vessels, the Ideal X, leaves Port Newark in New Jersey, ushering in a revolution in modern shipping.
1960s: Setting up of the US Amy First Logistical Command and the introduction of ‘unitised packaging’ to ship materials to Vietnam War.
Today: Approximately 90 per cent of bulk cargo worldwide is transported by container
