2067, the era of the extinction of the shippers and the portacontainer independent from 50.000 teu



Sci-fi? Perhaps. But who can preview with certainty that assumed how much from the international society of advising McKinsey & Company between fifty years will not be truth, that is that the transport by sea of the goods will happen on portacontainer in a position to embarking 50,000 containers from 20 ', that is to say more of the double quantity of the ability to the greatest ships than this type that currently take part of the world-wide fleet and that many consider that already today they determine rigidity and problems to the logistic chain rather than to produce synergies and to allow a control of the costs. Moreover, it is imagined that between means century the seas could be furrowed from ships from 50.000 teu lacking in crew, units to independent conduction of which today the employment is being experienced provoking reactions of blame or approval among those who consider impossible or feasible to use portacontainer completely automated.

In the last relationship of McKinsey from the title "Container shipping: the next 50 years" elaborated by Steve Saxon and Matt Stone one remembers that in by now far away 1967 the British Transport Docks Board (BTDB) commissioned to the McKinsey to estimate one of the most recent developments of the techniques of marine transport, a coming innovation from the America: that of the container. That year already the first ships express planned for this new modality of transport were constructed and some American companies of navigation had introduced to them in own regular marine services. The relationship of the june of 1967 delivered from McKinsey to the BTDB, ancestors of the Associated British Ports that has been born in 1982 from the privatization of the British Transport Docks Board, was entitled "Containerization: the key to low-cost transport", report in which - the investigators of the McKinsey emphasize today - the BTDB was exhorted to rethink all in the light of this revolution.

The today's relationship of the advising society evidences that today the field is characterized by another real upheaval produced from the digital technologies, Big Data and the Internet of the things. A new revolution - the report observes - than from to 50 years could here be realized exactly in portacontainer independent of the ability to 50.000 teu that they could transport floating and modular containers with typical characteristics of the droni. Moreover a consisting increase is assumed of the total volume of containerized marine transport, that it could be from two to five times that current one, and also an important increase of the intra-regional transport short beam. According to the researchers, the Far East could be still the main engine of this huge flow of containerized transport, while the main second market could be that of the connections with Africa and also with the Asian south-east.

This market could be dominated from three or four great companies of navigation. Moreover Saxon and Stone suppose that between fifty years the houses could not exist more than shipment, as the agreements and the transactions for via digital will reduce the necessity of intermediaries, perhaps until their extinction.

To win this digital battle they could but be the technological giants and not the operators of the containerized marine transport. The relationship observes in fact that the trend of increase of the shipping containerized has a slow down quickly beginning from the crisis financial institution and so that the companies of navigation of the field maintain the step with the innovations of the commerce are necessary that they invest in digital technologies to the aim to differentiate their produced one, to proceed to a disintermediazione of the chain of the value, to improve the service to the customers, to increase the productivity and to reduce the costs. Otherwise - the relationship of McKinsey admonishes - the risk is that the giants of the hi-tech take control great part of the value of the relations with the customers to the detriment of the operators of the marine transport of the container.

The relationship invites moreover the navigation companies that they want to feature in the next decades to strive in order to integrate the innovations of new generation in all the value chain. The marine carriers, and - specific the report - the terminals operator, must be confronted with ships always greater dimensions, important investments in the harbour terminals and with more and more transparent procedures for the management of the marine traffic on the world-wide routes and to the terminals. For the investigators of McKinsey, carriers and terminalisti, characterizing themselves as suppliers of integrated logistics and directly managing the relationships with the customers and the complexity of the logistic chain, could not return the resource to the shippers, foretold necessary dinosaurs of the future era.