Malcolm McLean was always considering ways to improve the efficiency of shipping containers for sale delivered via ocean shipping, including ways to avoid the loading and unloading processes, which typically take at least eight days on either end of a ship’s voyage. He did not come up with this concept. The military had already tested small containers throughout World War II, and ships had transported railcars to Cuba as early as 1929.
McLean was diligent as he set the standardization contributing to the significant declines in the number of laborers and time allocation. His efficiency-boosting initiatives led to the creation of a standardized container design that was given patent protection, believing that uniformity was also the way to the entire market expansion.
Shipping containers continue to hold significance in the cargo delivery industry and account for the global circulation of over 17 million shipping containers.
The Shipping Containers Standard
In 1956, McLean developed the shipping container standard that still exists nowadays. It was initially 33 feet in length, but he immediately enlarged it to 35 feet and made it eight feet broad and eight feet tall.
McLean decided to give the Industrial Organization for Standardization (ISO) a royalty-free license in order to have his patents approved. The potential for intermodal transportation was expanded by the shift into increased standardization.
McLean established the biggest shipping company worldwide in fewer than fifteen years. McLean’s SeaLand companies owned 27,000 trailer-type containers, 36 trailer ships, and connections to more than thirty port locations by the end of the 1960s.
The conventional container type in use nowadays is a “20-foot-equivalent container unit,” or TEU, which is 20 feet in length, similar width, but often one foot higher at 8’6 or 9’6 in height. Although the conventional type has various “standard dimensions”, like 40 ft long or 45 ft and even 53 feet long, all of those dimensions share similar widths.
Shipping Containers for Sale in the USA
Nowadays, the function of shipping containers have many functions, not only limited to transporting payloads. It comes with a series of other unique innovations that add value to shipping containers such as the conversion into a Garden shed, mobile art gallery, housing, cafe, and many other purposes.
Repurposing shipping containers into a house has been a way of maintaining a low-key lifestyle. It comes with a relatively low cost of maintenance.
In lower economic countries where creating something from scratch is impractical, it will not be practical to create something from the beginning, shipping container houses can be an alternative to conventional housing. Aside from the practicality, it is now becoming common to repurpose shipping containers even for unusual applications such as bitcoin mining containers, farming, and others.
Shipping Containers for Sale in the USA both Coastal and Inland Cities
Shipping containers for sale are popular among coastal towns in the USA such as Los Angeles, Miami, Boston, and others. Also, they are getting popular in inland cities such as Denver, Las Vegas, Dallas, and others. Generally, shipping containers are constantly in demand as they are critical in the modern shipping trend.
Conclusion
Malcolm McLean transformed the way shipping works nowadays. It started with the intention to make the shipping process cost-wise and time efficient. He went on to develop ISO-standard shipping containers, leading to the development of the current standard.
For further information on shipping containers for sale in the USA, please visit our website at www.shippingcontainersusa.com and fill out the quote form.
