History of Australian Innovation in Cargo Containerisation

Australian Innovation in Cargo Containerisation - innovation that led the world, records the history of  containerisation in Australia written by Jim Shannon. It is A5 EBook in pdf format. It will not be printed. It is freely available for download from this web site.

Permission is granted for the reprinting or copying of material from this publication, subject to the inclusion of acknowledgement of the source.

To download, please click on the following link:
Australian Innovation in Cargo Containerisation.pdf

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In less than one lifetime we have progressed from the consolidation of goods packed for transport into an infinite variety of containers to the overwhelming preference for two sizes of internationally accepted boxes one 20 ft long x 8 ft wide and the other 40 ft long and the same width. This has changed living standards for the better in much of the world at the expense of first world manufacturing workers and to the benefit of third world workers.

Australians played a leading role inventing and demonstrating the means by which this occurred and this history is written to record their deeds and honour some of the key people who made it happen.

In the background there are gigantic and largely unregulated struggles between the demands of workers for living standards they desire and competition between transport companies to transfer goods profitably so they can reward their investors. These struggles and a rising world population have resulted in large numbers of unemployed and many more underemployed workers.

We are already well into another development, automation. This will eliminate many more work occupations and change the character of the rest. The development of containerisation is limited to transport, this change to automation will be universal and so far there is no sign, to this author, that the organisers and manipulators of populations have any clear appreciation of what to do.

It is hoped that this history and the examples of what has happened to transport can be useful in guiding the future and interesting to our descendants.

Jim Shannon
July 2016

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Subjects:

• International Organization for standardization.
• J W Shannon Engineers (Firm).
• Containerization ‐ Technological innovations ‐ Australia.
• Containerization ‐ Standards ‐ Australia.
• Freight and freightage ‐ Technological innovations ‐ Australia.