Malcom McLean

McLean's standard box is why imported goods can move from a factory in Asia to a US fulfillment center at low cost and with little handling. A trucker frustrated by slow manual loading at ports, he put trailer bodies on ships so cargo would never be unpacked between modes, then built Sea-Land Service around the idea. Containerization cut port labor, theft, and transit time, and made intermodal freight practical. Every import shipment a brand books today, whether a full container load, drayage to a warehouse, or a demurrage bill, operates inside the system McLean started.

• Full Container LoadFCLOne shipper's goods in a whole container
• Intermodal FreightFreight moved by rail and truck in one box
• DrayageTrucking containers from port to warehouse

• Keith Tantlinger1919–2011 · Engineer of the shipping container system
• Mærsk Mc-Kinney Møller1913–2012 · Maersk leader in the container era

• Ideal X First Container Voyage1956 · The first commercially successful container ship sails
• Sea-Land Vietnam Container Service1967 · Containers clear a jammed war supply line
• First Dockside Container Crane1959 · A Matson crane lifts containers at high speed

• Merchant Marine Act of 1920 (Jones Act)1920 · US-built, US-crewed ships only between US ports

1. Malcom McLean (Wikipedia) en.wikipedia.org
2. Malcom McLean (National Inventors Hall of Fame) invent.org