In 1956, American entrepreneur Malcolm McLean had an idea that would change the face of portside operations forever. A 35-foot steel container.

Until then, goods were typically transported using the break-bulk method, where cargo came in every shape and size and loaded onto vessels as individually counted units. McLean’ s idea changed this through standardisation. What had once been a back-breaking process – loading and unloading cargo crate by crate, pallet by pallet – was transformed into a streamlined procedure that slashed time, cost, and complexity.

In many ways, portside operations today require a similar approach – but it’ s not the size of the cargo that’ s the problem; it’ s the number of players involved in the process. Moving containers over sea and land demands rigorous orchestration between different ocean carriers’ schedules with those of landside providers.

Here, we argue that taking a leaf out of McLean’ s book – what we call containerised thinking – can streamline this connection between ocean and inland logistics. In other words, instead of your business having to coordinate the transportation of containerised cargo between lots of different ocean carriers and landside providers, each with their own contracts, practices, and service levels, Maersk can be the single point of contact that handles all this work for you. It doesn’ t matter which ocean carrier you use, Maersk can pick up your cargo from the terminal and deliver it to your inland locations as a single standardised whole. p

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Intelligent CIO Europe Issue 96 | Page 22

BE READY TO UNLOCK EUROPE, NO MATTER THE OCEAN CARRIER: HOW OUR INTERMODAL MULTI CARRIER SOLUTION CAN HELP YOU GO ALL THE WAY

In 1956, American entrepreneur Malcolm McLean had an idea that would change the face of portside operations forever. A 35-foot steel container.