Summary – “The Box”, by Marc Levinson. Princeton 2006
Marc Levinson brings together in his book “The Box”, How The Shipping Container Made The World Smaller And the World Economy Bigger, a history in unitised freight handling in its birthplace, and shares with us an education in obsession, innovation, and invention. He describes through his main character, Malcom McLean, how to do business by integrating shipper, transporter, and customer in controlled logistics/ in a smooth supply chain. Further, the reader is given a lesson in investor relations whether they be public or private sector.
Despite regulated land transport, and unregulated freight handling on the docks, the result is the same: inertia in the evolution of both road and rail,
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“To run a high frequency service between major ports on a regular schedule” (pp.222) becomes the mantra for operating containerised sea-freight. Although many countries Government subsidise the investment of shipbuilding, or lend funds at very low rates of interest, and extend payment terms, ship owners need to supply themselves with containers, and chassis, to provide an integrated service to their customers. The sudden explosion of containers, containerships, enormous slot capacity between 1970-73 sees the coming of age of this new industry. More than ever, containers oblige their operators to constantly monitor costs, and the minimum requirement is to cover operating costs to keep the ships sailing.
Operating a profitable freight handling business requires “ship lines ... to build bigger ships and faster cranes to reduce the cost of handling each container ... [to] have the best chance of survival” (pp227). Before the end of the 1970´s, however, the reality of operating containers is that it is “a capital intensive, cyclical transportation” (pp.230) business. The bitter pill is that “they would always be hostage to external forces, their prices and profit margins depending mainly on economic growth and on the competitors´ decisions to build new ships”(pp.230). “The revolutionary impact of containerisation, the biggest advance in freight movement for generations, has largely worked itself out” (pp.230 – The Financial Times
One of the main ‘flows’ on transport, are goods (food, objects) that will be traded with other countries. The main improvement that has taken place in recent times is the creation of the freight transport, containerization. These containers can be loaded and unloaded, stacked, transported efficiently over long distances, and transferred from one mode of transport to another—container
This case provide a idea that people must change perception, which is consumers are not the whole components of movement of goods, but the movement of goods and merchandise essential to life and economic vitality. It breaks limit of scope to discuss present threat of cargo supply chain, sources of cargo terrorists and thieves, solutions and challenges for both short term and long term from private and public sectors.
Currently, the company is a global giant, in terms of its ability to move goods. Also, the company is highly visible and easily recognized. Over the years, it has become the world’s biggest package delivery company. However, it has also evolved to offer many other offerings and services. On a daily basis, the company operates and manages how goods and information are shipped throughout the world.
Forecast Management will also be implemented from Q13 onwards. This would comprise a special unit within the Strategic Planning Division which will closely monitor and analyze the forecasts and trends as it pertains to unit production and price elasticity of demand. While there are many ratios used to analyze and gauge a firm’s performance, The Box Inc. chose five ratios/data points which shall be used as a baseline to the organization’s overall performance. These ratios/data points were chosen as they were seen to give a good indication to how the firm is maintaining its goals of a balance between profits, debt management and shareholder value. The ratios in the table below will be used as a guideline to assist in the organization’s future operations. In order for an organization to progress, it is important to look back at its past performance, see what was done right, what was done wrong and what could be improved. The matrix below, patented by the firm as “The Box Inc.
- Explain the structures of the road and rail cargo industries and the current issues facing the industries.
Finally, an aging driver workforce is expected to result in driver shortages as drivers will be leaving the market at a faster rate than can be replaced by interested qualified new drivers. For these reasons, the overall transportation industry and global supply chain will be challenged as trucking is the common thread needed to complete rail, ocean and air moves. In addition to lower service levels for shippers, higher driver pay due to driver a shortage and rising transportation costs, a potential impact on the industry is a shift in focus toward driver productivity maximizing initiatives like reducing terminal/shipper dwell, improving chassis quality, or increasing number of drop pools (at the expense of container utilization). While a driver shortage should bode well for the fundamentals of intermodal (ie. fewer total truck miles) versus full OTR truck offerings, a significant driver shortage would nonetheless be a major challenge for the intermodal
Mr. Walsh, the general manager, has for some time suspected that the firm might save money and get equally good service by buying its containers from an outside source. After careful inquiries, he has approached a firm specializing in container production, Packages, Inc., and asked for a quotation. At the same time, he asked Mr. Dyer, his chief accountant, to let him have an up-to-date statement of the costs of operating the container department.
The use of containerization in freight movement has greatly reduced the cost and labor associated with moving freight. However, you highlighted something that is not often seen in the books, but in the field. The charges associated with the movement of freight intermodal is often combined into one charge for all modes of transportation used. For example, a shipment can be moved to the port via truck or rail, then placed on a ship to an overseas location, and finally trucked to its destination and the shipping charges would be on one shipping bill of lading. With freight shipments being consigned to one bill of lading no matter how many shipment modes used, does this make the payment process easier?
Ocean Carriers Inc. was approached in January of 2001 with a contract proposal for the leasing of one of their ships for a term of 3 years beginning in 2003. Ocean Carriers currently has no ship to accommodate the customer. To commission the construction of a new vessel would take 2 years from start to completion. The average rate in the spot market is $22,000 per day. Ocean Carriers deployed a younger fleet than average carriers and generally earned a 15% premium over the average daily rate placing them in position to capitalize in strong economies. However, the industry is volatile and suseptable to extremes both low and high. Many ship owners sought to sign contracts with time charters in order to shield themselves from the swings
Sturdy, convenient to transport and relatively cheap – these are some of the factors that have made the conversion of shipping containers into modern living and working spaces an ever growing trend in some other countries. However, little is only known about this innovation in Cebu. The proponents of this research study the supply and demand of these shipping containers. As end users create demand for the containers from the contractors as a finished infrastructures, these contractors are also creating a demand of raw shipping containers from the shipping companies. And yet there are more of these containers than what the people demanded, making a huge gap between the abundant supply of shipping container and the demand for them. The researchers
Reefer box, as known as refrigerated container, is listed in the Hanjin’ potential products list. Since reefer boxes are limited and demand for it is escalated from EU to Asia, reefer boxes are promoted inbound in Asia to export boxes to Europe. As a result, Hanjin can maximize EQ-equipment turnover. Some ports in Europe, such as Felixtowe in Great Britain, have a surplus of reefer boxes, thus the company can adjust the rate higher in order to limit the trade into such area while surplus areas, such as Barcelona in Spain, are offered a reasonable low rate to give Asia-Europe service promotions. Afterwards, the company gets higher contribution margin derives from Europe-Asia trade. Another way Hanjin reinforces its core business globally is promoting “shipper owned container”, “SOC” for short, in the area where boxes are deficit to save on empty repositioning cost. In surplus areas, Hanjin tries to be flexible with its rates to clear out the boxes and send them to other areas with high demand. The rates can be adjusted from lower to higher accordingly. Hanjin Shipping, additionally, has a service diversification to Africa as NAF-North Africa-Asia, WAF-West Africa, EAF-East Africa, SAF-South Africa lines are added. Before cargos are
The consequences of over-investment appear and the economy starts manifesting over-heating symptoms. New tonnage begins to come into the shipping market when the wider economy has reached its peak. Ship owners are not concerned about this because as far as they have been observing, the prosperity phase is getting better and better so they expect that it will continue on this upward trend. Then the recession hits and shippers become less willing to commit to long term charter parties and take advantage of declining freight rates on the sport market. There is competition as new tonnage enters the declining market between ship owners who try to grab hold of declining fixtures accepting lower freight rates than they had originally anticipated when the decision was made to order new vessels. A downturn in the economy resulted in a decrease in the demand for shipping and tonnage when supply is now inflated. There is a downward trajectory now and as freight rates and asset values decrease shippers hold back in anticipation of a depression and non-shipping banks begin to pull out as they lack the experience of such a volatile market.
Initially, there is the mode of land transportation. Roads, rails and pipelines fall under this category. These land logistics are very important because they extend the delivery services for air and water transport from airports and seaports. The main transport mode of land logistics are railway, road freight and pipeline transport. The advantage of railway transport is that it has carrying capacity and lower influences by weather conditions
Every firm would love to invest in shipping industry due to large profits involved. However this would seem easy but practically it is lot more difficult and virtually impossible to establish in container line business. The problem pertains to large capital investments in form of vessel and container procurements and risk of operating vessels. Even if we take the examples of biggest companies
The transportation and logistics industry is one of the key components of modern life. It provides the framework through which every raw material and finished consumer good is moved through the supply chain into the hands of consumers. This industry is generally taken for granted by consumers. When consumers do think about the industry it is thought of in terms of unchanging and stagnate transportation modes. This vision of the industry is not an accurate reflection of the reality of modern transportation industry. During the last several decades the technological innovations that have changed the face of modern life, have also had far reaching effects on the transportation industry. The pressures driving innovation in the industry