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To anchor discussion, prior to the rise of intermodal shipping containers in the '60s & '70s, cargo was shipped as breakbulk cargo. Losses from theft and damage
by shoo 6y ago
To anchor discussion, prior to the rise of intermodal shipping containers in the '60s & '70s, cargo was shipped as breakbulk cargo. Losses from theft and damage were considerably reduced by switching from breakbulk cargo to shipping containers. Not the same as losing stuff over the side, but still a regular and somewhat predictable expense.
One anecdote I remember from Levinson's book is about a scottish whisky distiller exporting to the US being very excited about being able to ship whisky in a giant stainless steel vessel inside a container instead of shipping individual bottles inside wooden crates (imagine the theft during loading/unloading...).
That said, shipping containers were not adopted because they reduced theft and damage (consequently the cost of insuring cargo), they were adopted because they offered much lower costs to shippers (after enough investment in ships and ports and cranes and trucks and changes to transport regulation to provide the infrastructure to move containers around efficiently without double-handling them or unloading and repacking them for technical/labour/regulatory reasons).
Marc Levinson's book _The Box_ about the history of the shipping container is worth a read -- https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691170817/the-box https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691170817/th...
- rurounijones 6y ago"The box that changed Britain" is a good BBC documentary on the subject as well if you can find it online.
- samstave 6y agohttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bIEH0Db0XVc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bIEH0Db0XVc
- pchristensen 6y agoThe Box is way more fascinating than it has any right to be. It touches on basically every aspect of post-1950 world economy, history, urban planning, social changes, migration, etc.
- kasey_junk 6y agoIt’s one of the best books I’ve read in the last 10 years. The discussion about the traffic to the Manhattan docks by itself was wild.
- ineedasername 6y agoYes, absolutely. It absolutely hammered home for me the extreme value potential of even (seemingly) small logistical changes. It reminds me of a quote about warfare: "Amateurs talk about strategy and tactics. Professionals talk about logistics"
- contingencies 6y agoLogistics entrepreneur here. I'm keeping that quote! Apparently Robert Hilliard Barrow (1922-2008), USMC four-star general. Added to https://github.com/globalcitizen/taoup https://github.com/globalcitizen/taoup
- philwelch 6y agoOne interesting take I’ve read on that quote is that you need to consider the source. If you’re a general for a country that routinely deploys troops to the other side of the world, in the service that specializes in landing those troops on a hostile beach with no friendly infrastructure, in a milieu when it is no longer considered acceptable to supply your troops by allowing them to pillage the countryside, you are going to spend a lot more time worrying about logistics.
- contingencies 6y agoNotice how many posts it took us to get from shipping containers to relative ancient-modern military strategic considerations. I think we've all been playing too many strategy games.
- ineedasername 6y ago
- donw 6y agoI've taken an interest in learning more about both the history of logistics, as well as modern practices. Any more links (books or otherwise) you could share?
- dharmab 6y ago99pi's podcast episode on "Reefers" (refrigerated containers) https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/reefer-madness/ https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/reefer-madness/
- ineedasername 6y agoThere's been a fair bit written about how Walmart leveraged incredible logistics to achieve its retail dominance, not unlike Amazon doing the same in the online world. I've also come across interesting work on how Dell helped change consumer computing with Just in Time supply chains.
- dzhiurgis 6y agoIMO Amazon makes money by selling counterfeits.
- smabie 6y agoYou think Amazon would not be profitable if there were no counterfeits?
- throwaway_kufu 6y agoIsn’t true they never turned a profit until AWS? I wonder if the online marketplace by it self still doesn’t turn profit. Probably impossible to figure out with additions of services like Prime and Amazon Fresh.
- dharmab 6y agoFor most of its history Amazon reinvested all of its excess revenue; the "Amazon wasn't profitable" soundbite is misleading. Amazon made money, and spent it on buying and building more Amazon instead of distributing dividends to shareholders. On paper that is "zero profit" _for shareholders_.
- goodpoint 6y ago> To anchor discussion cough
- nradov 6y agoThe Scottish distillers should just ship whisky in tankers a few million gallons at a time. Much more cost effective.
- 55555 6y agoThey should just build pipelines.
- MereInterest 6y agoIt has happened before for beer, though I haven't heard of it for whiskey. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jul/08/bruges-pipe-dream-a-reality-beer-pipeline https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jul/08/bruges-pipe-dr...
- euroderf 6y agoFWIW there have been vodka pipelines across the Russia-Estonia border at Narva, and from Belarus to Poland.
- chha 6y agoThanks for suggesting the book, added it to my list of things to read!