The shipping network that keeps the world running | Hacker News Reader

The shipping network that keeps the world running

bbc.com

115 pointsjonbaer20 comments

I recently read The Box[1] by Marc Levinson. It is an excellent read which explains how the container came to be - it's really fascinating to think that this ubiquitous thing was only invented about 50 years ago.

The book is very entertaining and informative, though it has a rather US-centric approach (being Danish, I obviously looked for when Maersk would be introduced, but they are barely mentioned). I especially enjoyed the explanations of how shipping worked before "the box." Dockworkers' unions were extremely powerful, to the extent of introducing ridiculous rules. E.g. "seven people must be assigned to each hatch on the ship, even if there is not enough for them to move there, and they are not allowed to help crews at other hatches." They went to extreme lengths to protect their jobs, and ultimately failed because they would not accept that they could not stop the container.

[1] http://smile.amazon.com/Box-Shipping-Container-Smaller-Econo...

Along those lines, this article about Malcolm McLean (often called the father of containerization) is a great read.

http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/5026.html

I just finished Ninety Percent of Everything: Inside Shipping, the Invisible Industry That Puts Clothes on Your Back, Gas in Your Car, and Food on Your Plate by Rose George. It focuses more on the life at sea, working conditions, regulation, changes in the industry, pirates, ransoms, and other things. Broad scope, readable, interesting, unique, recommended.

+1 for The Box.

+1 for The Box

The company I work for, www.stage3systems.com, builds logistical web apps for marine shipping and related industries - our software covers the full spectrum of the industry from vessel construction to port agency.

I've been at Stage 3 for about two years and it has been incredibly fascinating learning about the business from the inside. As efficient as they may appear, the day-to-day operations of the businesses within shipping are generally riddled with piles of paper documents and mountains of email. And we're trying to pivot their centuries-old workflows which is an incredibly eye-opening and difficult problem.

More power to you! I worked in fuel shipping and bunkering, and the fact that many times a day I had to haul a typewriter up 60ft of rope ladder to produce receipts to be signed by the captain/chief eng. because the only tech they trusted was CARBON PAPER in the year 2008 simply boggled!

I know, it just completely boggles the mind. One of the products I lead is based around agency operations - these guys are probably some of the heaviest paper pushers in the industry. And I'll walk into an office and see them creating them with typewriters, by hand, or slowly tapping away at their keyboard into Word, burning through a five-figure annual printer budget. A port call will involve a few dozen documents (B/Ls, customs forms, etc). One of the product modules effectively automates that and it's an incredible impact on their workload.

SEDNA = MCS for the Web?

What's MCS?

Happy to explain via PM.

Sure, feel free to email -> alex@alexcrooks.com

If you find container shipping interesting, and perhaps Maersk specifically, Markus Völter did an episode [1] on the topic on his Omega Tau podcast a while back. The episode also goes into some depth about how optimisation is applied to some of the processes in the industry. Full disclosure: I am one of the interviewees.

[1] http://omegataupodcast.net/2014/04/146-container-shipping/

For that extra sense of perspective, trying opening one of the many cargo tracking apps and make them display all the ships in the world.

http://www.sailwx.info/shiptrack/shiplocations.phtml http://www.marinetraffic.com/

Log into a Bloomberg terminal and use the BMAP function. Lots of fun: (near) real-time tracking of cargo vessels plus their cargo, and a lot of other interesting data re commodities, weather, etc.

At EMF Camp last summer, Dan W gave a great talk about his similar Unknown Fields trip on a container ship. This by far was one of the highlights of the event, as it was extremely insightful into this hidden world. You can watch the talk at http://www.iamdanw.com/said/emfcamp/

Dan is now writing up the journey, you can follow his tales at http://www.iamdanw.com/postcards/

> It's a hypnotic, fascinating dance to watch: the cranes lifting containers off the ships, the trucks pulling up in time to catch them as they are elegantly lowered down on steel cables.

What is a good video of this?

Not entirely what you asked for, but:

1) It has plenty of shots of ships 2) is really cool to watch anyway

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qjD9VvhXJrE

I have such a sense of awe when looking at pictures of container ships. This article sums it up pretty well. Capitalism certainly has its downsides, but results in some pretty amazing things. Then again, the same could be said about totalitarianism. I guess you could generalize it to: modern powerful entities can do amazing things.

You can't get anything big done without power, and often times that power requires the needs of the group to be greater than the needs of the individual ..

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