Problems and possibilities in the container age
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ANTWERP CONFERENCE PAPERS OF ICHCA REVIEWED BY JOHN DARKER AMBIM
pRACTICAL problems facing consignors and carriers of goods packed in ocean-going containers were highlighted by Mr. T. F. Poole, a member of Lloyds, at Antwerp this week at the eighth technical conference of the International Cargo Handling Co-ordination Association (ICHCA).
The containers must be regularly inspected and maintained and operators should refuse to load a damaged container, Mr. Poole declared. While the problem of providing a balancing flow of suitable cargo in a container would exercise the ingenuity of operators, insurers, too, would need to keep in touch with the latest loading techniques.
It was important that a standard limit of carriers' liability should be agreed internationally, said Mr. Poole. He contrasted the £800 per ton limit of liability accepted by the Road Haulage Association, British Road Services and British Railways with the CMR limit of £3,000 per ton in Common Market countries.
Under RHA conditions the owner of goods had to prove negligence, which could result in hi-jacking losses not being recoverable, but there was a different emphasis in other countries. In the United States, the situation varied from State to State, though on inter-rail traffic the owner of goods might impose liability on the first or last of a chain of carriers.
Stressing shipboard hazards with containers, Mr. Poole underlined their heavy weight, the problem of safe stowage, and the proliferation of securing bolts, eyes and so on which added to the protection and indemnity liability, as did the skidding of containers within non-cellular holds, Mr. Poole believed that insurers who quoted a rate on freight charges ignoring the fragility, perishability or other special nature of the merchandise, were ill-advised, though it had been done for several container services. He felt it would be preferable if cargoes were grouped into six to nine different categories (refrigerated, fragile, durable and so on) and the rate quoted for each section could then be quickly applied to the declared value of the cargo concerned.
Complicated system of regulations
In his paper, "Road Transport—Handling Unit Loads from 25 kg to 25 tons", Mr. D. W. Bergeren, manager, technical and transport department, NOB Wegtransport, referred to the complicated system of regulations restricting the weights, dimensions and speeds of vehicles and loads. He regretted that no agreement had vet been reached in the Common Market regarding the maximum allowable weight in international transport.
In Benelux the gross train weight was 40 tons but it was "inexplicable and unsatisfactory" that the European Commission wanted to restrict this weight to 38 tons. The trucking industry in the Netherlands was disappointed by the lack of uniformity regarding the gross weight of a 2-axle vehicle in the Benelux and in the Federal Republic of Germany.
The maximum allowable weight in Western Germany for this type of vehicle, in particular for the full trailer, was limited to 16 tons, whereas "we have a limitation of 2 times 10 tons which makes 20 tons. This difference greatly affects the economy of the 2-axle trailer and strikes us as very strange while the tandem-axle (in widespread use) in the Federal Republic is allowed a total weight of 20 tons".
The development of unit loads in unconventional fields was touched on by Mr. Bergeren. Illustrating the time-saving possible with mechanized loading and off-loading of packaged bricks, he noted that the loading and off-loading of 20 tons of bricks by hand took about 17+ man hours and the vehicle was idle for at least 3 hours. With the Hub o mechanized loading apparatus the same amount of unitized bricks could be taken on and off the truck in about 1+ man hours, reducing the man hours to a twelfth and the idle hours of the truck to 30 minutes. This invention "by which associated transport in the vicinity of the manufacturer and on the building site is also accelerated" was now used in various countries in Western Europe.
Mr. Bergeren stressed that more than a third of all standardized pallets in the Netherlands were of 100 X 120 cm, and in the Federal Republic this size was even more popular. He urged an objective approach to the advantages of this size, and said road hauliers should take greater interest in box pallets. Here, again, international agreement on carrying capacity, dimensions and construction would help development.
In Continent /Great Britain trade, Mr. Bergeren believed a further development of swop bodies would occur. "The advantages resulting from the ability to disconnect the carrying component ... from the drawing component, which is very expensive to operate because cf the purchase, taxes and crew, are very distinct". As regards the popular roll-on /roll-off ferry services, Mr. Bergeren hoped agreement would soon be reached to avoid the losses incurred because of the difference in maximum length of artic vehicles-13 m. in England and 15 m. on the Continent. Inland Customs clearance centres, too, would relieve port congestion on these services.
Expert studies predicted that by 1980 about 60 per cent of Rotterdam's total general freight traffic would be handled as unit loads, inclusive of containers and roll-on/roll-off traffic. This meant that some 18m. tons would be dealt with as unit loads— nearly as much as the total movement of general freight in 1965.
Surveying the pattern of international traffic flow within the Common Market, Mr. Bergeren emphasized its concentration between large economic centres. The distance between the "Delta" ports and Ruhr and Frankfurt areas, Antwerp /Brussels and Northern France inclusive of Paris was never more than 300 miles. The circle of this radius comprised more than a third of the total Common Market population (180m.). Dutch road hauliers were following developments with great interest. "Out of every 4 kg moved by the inter-load professional carriers, roughly 3 kg went by road and only 1 kg by rail or barge. Our motor carriers are handling about 40 per cent of the total international road transport within the Common Market".
The remarkable productivity of modern freight carrying aircraft was discussed by Mr. H. N. Murray, assistant traffic manager (cargo) of British European Airways, in his paper "Air Freight Handling". Modern jet freighters with 40 tons capacity produced over 20,000 capacity ton miles per hour; jumbo jets due in service in two or three years' time would raise this to over 50,000 CTMs per hour—vastly more than the 3,000 CTM possible with the 12 ton Super Argosy freighters which lost almost £800,000 in 1965 /6.
Looking to the 1970s, Mr. Murray stated that the first aircraft able to accept ISO containers would be the 100-ton-plus Boeing 747 jumbo jet. He envisaged containers being cleared at inland clearance depots and carried by road or rail to or from the airport. There would be no storage, consolidation, waiting, documentation or Customs control for these consignments at the airport. Substantial rate reductions were expected to trigger off another great increase in world air cargo movements.
"Forwarding"
"Only about 20 per cent of the cargo moving across the Atlantic consists of lots of more than 10 tons, which means that at least 80 per cent of the cargo must be consolidated". This statement by Mr. H. Lehmann, president of the International Federation of Forwarding Agents' Associations (FIATA), in his paper on "Forwarding", suggested the need for adequate collection and distribution centres which "do not yet exist to any extent in Europe and will be costly to construct".
International co-operation was essential, Mr. Lehmann believed, and he urged close liaison between sea /land carriers and forwarding agents. If carriers competed with forwarders and organized their own terminals in the ports and inland centres in accordance with the "do it yourself principle" it would involve enormous investment and tremendous running expenses. "Such carrierowned enterprises would ... not be able to cover the market in the same way as the individual forwarding firms and their branches, which must be counted by the ten thousands". Nor would carrierowned enterprises be impartial nor universal, he insisted.
Mr. Lehmann foresaw the development of container broking services to assist return loading of containers. This would occur, he thought, whether containers were carrier-owned or belonged to independent leasing companies or were owned ty a container pool. Forwarders were familiar with this type of work as they had worked as brokers for road hauliers for many years, and road hauliers recognized their ability to procure return cargo. "A very close and trustful co-operation between road carriers and forwarding agents has been the result"; hence the desire of forwarders to contribute similar services to the container market.
He wanted a system to allow European and American containers to move freely on an international basis on both ..ides of the Atlantic. Each container should have a unique, permanent and duly registered international number. The authorities responsible for the technical regulations for commercial vehicles should cooperate internationally to make the unhampered use of this rolling stock possible in all countries involved. "It is most surprising and discouraging to see how different points of view of technicians hamper the free exchange and use of equipment necessary for the quick and natural development of. . . new methods of transportation".
Mr. Lehmann expected that the boundaries of road carriers and forwarders would become more and more blurred in the future. FIATA urged inter-professional co-operation between carriers, Customs and port authorities and forwarders and he commended the container co-operation societies founded by forwarders in Austria, France, Germany, Holland, Norway and Sweden. He concluded with the hope that the "violent process of change we now witness will not . . . degenerate into a container service dogfight, but that a free and healthy competition on a fair and economically sound basis will be allowed . . . to decide the future".
Multiplicity of media
The multiplicity of transport media operating frequently within a restricted area was criticized by Mr. Albert Scherrer, managing director, Natural SA, Basle, in his paper "Grouping and Distribution Centres". At one time the systems of two or more means of transport tended to adapt themselves or even to complete each other. "Now .. . the number of these centres is suffering a veritable inflation which .. . results in an increase in the cost of transhipment and routeing. The exaggerated capacity of out-of-date equipment has already resulted in pernicious abuses, which not even fierce competition can check".
Collection and distribution centres at the nerve centres of international goods traffic would greatly reduce general costs of operating, benefiting transport organizations and traders. In the new terminals there should be an "absolute separation of the means of transport and the routeing lines, even during the heaviest traffic periods". In fact, an error of loading in a container at an inland terminal could have even more serious consequences than in trans-Atlantic traffic at the port of embarkation. Mr. Scherrer stressed the need for the intensive use of mechanical handling equipment and for associated electronic data processing to maximize the use of costly equipment.
Mr. Scherrer revealed that extensive enquiries in 18 European and overseas countries supported his conviction that the problem of grouping and distribution centres in relation to the international traffic in large containers was "still in such a state of confusion and evolution that it is scarcely possible to form a definite, clear and precise opinion."
The need for a big area of land adjacent to container berths was questioned by Vice-Admiral J. Hughes Hallett, consultant director, British Shippers' Council, in his paper "The Shipper's Point of View". Was not such a concept unimaginative, conflicting with the requirement that the transit of the cargo should be speeded up to match the speed with which ships could be loaded?
Admiral Hallett envisaged the organization of a steady flow of containers from packing depots to the berth. "On arrival, each container would be lifted off its roadvehicle or rail wagon, loaded straight into the ship and replaced by another inward bound container as it is unloaded. There is nothing impossible in such a concept, provided there is suitable equipment, good organization, and strict discipline".
An admirable exposition of enlightened personnel management of particular relevance to transport organizations was given by Dr. A. H. Bos, a Dutch management development consultant, in his paper, "Training and developing human skills as a condition for technical innovation and organizational change". Dynamic forces such as improved technology, the growth of population and political democracy tended to cause change so that being an "entrepreneur" today called for a high degree of dynamism and 'creativity. "Resistance to change, misplaced conservatism, fear of long term planning, the preservation of narrow self-interest or national pride all act as a brake on progress".
The transport world, argued Dr.Bos, had become involved in this dynamism later than other industries and it was singularly backward in exploiting its human resources. Fundamentally the issue was not whether we transport goods more or less efficightly but whether technology was used "only to create more material welfare and with tint to banish man himself. If we allow enclaves in our organizations where there is no place for the whole man but only room for muscular strength and some other peripheral skills, this will cause a festering sore in the leisure time activities of the people and go deep into the schools and families.
"The alternative is to accept the challenge and to develop, with and through the handling of technology, forms of organization, forms of management, which appeal to the best in man. If the point of view is accepted that every human being has in him the possibility of development and that no particular social or racial groups are, for some mysterious reason, devoid of this, then great cultural responsibilities are here for every manager, which transcend his limited contribution in the economic sphere".