So yesterday was the long awaited field trip to the port. Quite frankly, more time was needed. Our statistics lecture had to be cut an hour short to allow us to go, and we only just made it back in time for the policy lecture.
The trip was broken up into two parts. The first was basically just driving around the east and west parts of the port with a tour guide lady. Southampton has three big Cs: cars, containers, and cruises. That means that there are huge portions of land taken up at the docks by brand new cars waiting to either be shipped away, or being brought into the country. There weren't any cruise ships in, but there were some container ships in. Oh, and they also bring in bulk goods, like barley and wheat, that are stored in a giant granary, plus there is a tomato importing facility, and then a Bacardi importing facility. The Bacardi one is quite interesting because they have some pipes set up to transfer the liquids from the ship to their bottling facility that is conveniently located within the port.
The second part of the trip was a presentation at the container facility and then a little drive around that portion of the port. It doesn't necessarily seem like it would be interesting, but the pure logisitics involved in shipping containers is really something. Plus they have two really cool machines just for moving containers. One looks kind of like a forklift, but instead of moving pallets of mayo at costco, they move empty containers that are stacked up like, six high. And then there are these things called stradle carriers that move the loaded containers around, putting them on the backs of trucks and things. There were containers EVERYWHERE at this place. It's amazing that they can keep track of them all. It's sort of strange to think that most all of your posessions were in one of those things at one point in time, that all these man hours have been dedicated to getting your dvd player from point A to point B in an organized and time efficient manner.
Woo. I've totally gone nerd. Sorry.
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5 comments:
The standardization of shipping containers was one of the great improvements in international trade in the last half of the 20th century.
That's my boy!!
So, did any of those containers deliver your Christmas packages?
i did not know that about shipping containers - interesting.
it's crazy thinking about all that liquor flowing through pipes to the port.
I can appreciate your visit. I'm the nerd with the Supply Chain & Logistics degree, after all.
Did you know that you can also travel by container ship?
http://www.freightercruises.com/
It's funny standardization should be mentioned. One of the key freight related issues in Britain these days is the fact that the standard heights of the containers have been increased from 8'6" to 9'6", and the taller containers cannot travel on large parts of the train network here because of low bridges and tunnels. It's quite the dilemna.
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