in 1956 a ship retired from the second world war was Rec christened the SS ideal X on her first voyage she left Port nework New Jersey 5 days later she arrived in Houston Texas on board were 58 large metal boxes today we would call them containers in Texas they were loaded onto 58 trucks and whisked off to their various destinations it was the birth of modern container shipping the idea seems so simple today yet it revolutionized the shipping industry and with it the global supply chain globalization as we understand it today simply would never have
existed without it this is what a port looks like before containerization this is Sund kaapa in Jakarta even today many ports don't have the facilities to accommodate large container vessels or The Dockside equipment to unload boxes at speed this is how a modern Port looks today metal containers have transformed the loading process boxes are moved on and off ships by special cranes in a matter of minutes from the port side they are transferred to rail or truck container ships are getting bigger and bigger today the largest transport not 58 metal boxes but up to 18,000
some ships are 400 m long and 59 M wide the only constraint is the size of the port and the width of the Mala Strait if you think about globalization if you think about world trade as it exists today with the ability to Source Products from all over the world the ability to manufacture uh and produce in locations uh without transport cost being a huge obstacle um I mean that is uh is is the miracle that that that containerization has brought about the ability to move things around without having to really worry about the cost
without containers China wouldn't be the factory of the world containers don't only transport finished goods these days Supply chains are ever more complex components can be shipped from multiple countries Assemble in China or elsewhere and sold in Europe or America there have been major battles over the size of containers at first there were dozens of incompatible sizes gradually the industry has agreed standards these days most big boxes are 20 or 40 ft long something like 90% of all non-b cargo is transported on container ships alt together container boxes make some 200 million Journeys a year
in 2008 the BBC painted a container in a special Livery and tracked its movements with a GPS system its first Consignment was whiskey transported from a Glasgow bottling plant to Shanghai in Shanghai it was reloaded with Cosmetics gardening tools and tape measures from there the BBC box went to Los Angeles via Yokohama traveled by Rail and Road to Pennsylvania where it was loaded with ink spearmint flavoring and polyester fiber then it was sent to the port of Santos in Brazil after that among other destinations the container went on to ports in Singapore Bangkok and right
here in Hong Kong it sounds like a crazy ride in fact it couldn't have been more normal David pilling Financial Times Hong Kong e
