The Box that Changed the World is.....
not the PC. Not even the Ipod.
Its the shipping container.
Before the standardized cargo container came into being in the early 1960s a port could load or unload about a half ton per man hour. Now that number is closer to 5,000 tons per man hour.
The time in port shrank from weeks to hours.
Ships increased their carrying capacity by over 4 fold.
Along with these efficiencies you have to add a much lower breakage rate, the virtual elimination of theft, and greatly reduced damage from weather and the like.
Moreover, shipping containers enabled multimodal transport (from truck to train to ship to train to truck.)
The net effect has been to reduce the cost of shipping to the point of being almost negligible.
Without this innovation inflation would be higher and the development of Asian manufacturing economies would have been impossible.
The second industrial revolution was about motors and engines and the ability to reduce the cost of physical power while making it possible to apply it in a greatly concentrated fashion. Similarly, the technology revolution is about reducing the cost of the transfer of information, and allowing its concentration. In its own niche, the cargo container did the same by driving down the cost of shipping and making "densification" possible. It is hard to underestimate the affect that this technology has had on the world economy and peoples' lives.
Its the shipping container.
Before the standardized cargo container came into being in the early 1960s a port could load or unload about a half ton per man hour. Now that number is closer to 5,000 tons per man hour.
The time in port shrank from weeks to hours.
Ships increased their carrying capacity by over 4 fold.
Along with these efficiencies you have to add a much lower breakage rate, the virtual elimination of theft, and greatly reduced damage from weather and the like.
Moreover, shipping containers enabled multimodal transport (from truck to train to ship to train to truck.)
The net effect has been to reduce the cost of shipping to the point of being almost negligible.
Without this innovation inflation would be higher and the development of Asian manufacturing economies would have been impossible.
The second industrial revolution was about motors and engines and the ability to reduce the cost of physical power while making it possible to apply it in a greatly concentrated fashion. Similarly, the technology revolution is about reducing the cost of the transfer of information, and allowing its concentration. In its own niche, the cargo container did the same by driving down the cost of shipping and making "densification" possible. It is hard to underestimate the affect that this technology has had on the world economy and peoples' lives.
posted by Howard at 9:43 AM
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