Freight containers and lanes of shipping look like a child's toyland from far above the ground. The containers stack upon each other as multi-ton capacity hoists run along rails to begin a new island of building block-shaped storage units. Reefers plug in to electrical and diesel power supplies in static facilities or continue onward, conveyed down a highway by a semi-truck or a chain of railway cars.
The international model of freight dispersal is a never-ending dispatch of TEU, Twenty-foot Equivalent Units crossing oceans and land masses to be further branched off into smaller trucks before arriving at their ultimate destination. Intermodal containers carry building materials and commercial products in 8'6" wide standardized packages while similarly scaled reefers accomplish the same task with the addition of a streamlined refrigeration unit, but what of the logistics of such a massive operation? Coordinating the transportation and storage of any and every type of cargo is an unbelievably complex series of time managed tasks that cross international borders. The process has shaped maritime law and defined overland transportation, leading to the simplification of key aspects such as the aforementioned TEU system of capacity measurement.
The infrastructure of the events supporting the non-stop mobilization of container freight is defined first of all by the conventions of transportation, a system of cooperative movement that first took shape in the days of the British and Dutch trade routes as supply-and-demand created conduits of commerce between the Americas and Europe. The vessels carried the bulk of the freight, and that cargo was continually finessed down the chain of transport, from rail carriage to horse and coach, ever downward until the product arrived at merchant houses. The second part of this equation arose from stoppage points and dispatch centers, the transit centers where import licenses were processed and granted. This same system exists today but in a far more orthodox form, one that uses every iota of technological prowess to keep cargo secure and moving.
Port terminals still maintain the closest connection to this mode of freight movement, but inland terminals, superbly equipped centers where reefer facilities and large-plant handling machinery operate, have popped up to support the over-extended port authorities and terminals. In short, taking all of these factors into account, an entire science has developed to aid in the management of cargo dispersal. The science of logistics is the key here, a methodology that uses time management as the glue to hold the entire process in place. Logistics is what prevents perishable cargoes from languishing in a a warehouse while a mistimed truck arrival is still a thousand miles out, and logistics is the power that pulls the strings at every stage of the transport and storage operation.
| After Hours: | Danny 0408 488 114 |
Optimized by NetwizardSEO.com.au
