Containerisation and computing power have followed similar growth paths, but while the full benefits of loading cargo into boxes have been effectively realised, the use cases for IoT devices remain in their infancy in what is a burgeoning market.
Electronic tracking in real time is expected to explode onto the container transportation scene with a similar transformational effect to the development of containerization itself.
Supply chain stakeholders will see a wide range of benefits from challenging events such as heavy weather, to deviation warnings, as well as customs and operational issues, allowing them to respond appropriately. An option that was never open to shippers in the pre-containerisation era.
In the 1950’s the US military was the first to use containers to transport cargo. Fast forward 20 years and the realisation that containers could speed up cargo handling on ships was dawning on the industry.
Another two decades further on and China was beginning to open up as a trading partner to western economies. In 2018, six of the top ten ports by TEU were Chinese, handling a combined 151.3 million TEU. Those same ports in 1990 handled just 1 million TEU, with Ningbo – Zhoushan and Shenzhen, registering zero cargo, as they hadn’t been built yet.
Containerisation took 20 years to be realised as a supply chain game changing technology, and another four decades to reach its potential. Supply chain visibility will not have to wait that long as the technology is developing fast.
China’s rise in importance to global trade mirrored the rapid development of the use of computers in everyday life. Moore’s law suggested that processing power would double every 18 months to two years, which effectively saw the power of computing grow exponentially.
Global trade has followed a similar pattern, particularly where China is concerned, with the country developing its trade ties in the eighties and nineties, but growth really took off when the country joined the World Trade Organization in 2001.
The Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development in its paper, “Containerships – the engines of globalization and trade”, said: “During the 2000-2018 period alone, [global] container trade rose by more than three-fold, from 224.8 to 792.7 million TEUs, led by China’s impressive growth.”
While global trade was rapidly growing and containerisation of cargoes, shifting from the ponderous bulk trades, occurred the move to more modern tracking and documentation was slow by comparison.
In 2018 Maersk claimed it could save in the region of $20bn annually by shifting from hard copy documentation to electronic data and document transfers. That is not the only benefit of containerisation and the electronic revolution, that will eventually benefit supply chain stakeholders across the board.
A fact that was recognised by the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) as long ago as 2020 in a trade facilitation white paper on smart containers. Shifting documentation to an electronic format, will still leave containers vulnerable to the variety of incidents that can befall cargo in the physical world.
That is why the UNECE acknowledged the benefits that will accrue as a result of real time monitoring. From the comparatively well-known benefits, including real time knowledge of where a container actually is; realistic ETA’s; deviation alerts; unexpected door opening alerts; along with real time temperature and humidity readings.
However, other, less recognised benefits will also be afforded to stakeholders, including when a container has been discharged at the wrong port, or when a container is specified on a vessel’s manifest, but is not loaded onto the vessel; containers left on the quayside at the export terminal in error or discharged at the wrong port.
These are all errors experienced by cargo owners during the transportation of freight, where early recognition and identification of these errors would have made it easier to overcome the subsequent challenges posed by the failures.
In all the UNECE identified up to 20 separate benefits to the container shipping industry that electronic tracking would offer. And those benefits were not limited to cargo owners, with shipping lines being able to track and monitor the movements of large fleets of containers, empties and laden boxes.
Monitoring devices such as Traxens Box and Traxens Box Easy can drive the development electronic use safely, and with ready information that can be analysed by a system such as Control Tower, which can follow all of a company’s shipments, with data from IoT devices sent directly to the system.
Moreover, cross border agencies may be able to fast track containers ahead of their arrival in port if data for risk assessments can be posted early in the vessel’s journey. Container maintenance monitoring can also have a positive effect with data uploaded and sent via IoT devices on the condition of a container.
Such, inspections and early interventions could help prevent stack collapses on board vessels as the movement of modern ships in heavy weather can cause excessive stress on lashings and cargo stowed on deck.
With tracking devices fitted to all containers, rather than just temperature-controlled boxes, the ability to manage cargo systems becomes more integrated and that in itself becomes a benefit.
