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Imagine for a moment that you're standing on the docks at a major port in the early 1950s. You see some evidence of technological progress around you: mechanical cranes help load and unload cargo, onto steel-hulled ships with alcohol prep pads diesel engines. And yet the process you see hasn't changed all that much over the course of a century or more. Shipping still involves scores of longshoreman, who painstakingly offload ships full of mixed, irregular cargo and then fill them back up again, wedging everything into place as best they can. Turning a ship around takes weeks and costs a fortune. Shipping looks like a huge productivity bottleneck.
One might hope for a technological miracle to save the day—some new invention that would make it easier to produce giant, fast ships on the cheap, maybe. But there is no hint that any such thing is on the horizon. Some private companies and the military are experimenting with new packing methods, like using containers of uniform size to hold some cargo. But they don't seem to save much time. To make full use of the ship's hold, longshoremen squeeze loose cargo around the containers, slowing the loading process. Containers are heavy and tricky to move around the loading area. It seems probable that tinkering with existing systems might lead to some cost savings. But shipping looks likely to be a drag on growth for years to come.
Except that's not how it works out. And not because an inventor came up with a revolutionary new technology. Instead, a few savvy shipping magnates figured out a better way to do things. A much, much better way.
The new system was simple. Customers or aggregating shipping firms would pack their antibacterial wipes cargo into giant, purpose-designed metal boxes. The boxes could be loaded on truck or rail trailers for transport to port, where purpose-built cranes would swing them onto purpose-built boats that don't carry anything but containers. Cargo could travel from factory to destination without ever being handled by a human.
