Nice article. The other end of this equation are ubiquitous shipping pallets:

http://www.slate.com/articles/business/transport/2012/08/pal...

Optimizing what to put on a pallet and in what order to maximize use of space is also a nice intellectual challenge for anyone wanting one. In real-world scenarios (esp Walmart-style retail), you have to factor in boxes of varying sizes at varying distances from where they must be loaded. Travel distance, fork-lift or walking, counts too. Then, it has to be fast enough and easy to follow to be used in a fast-paced, production environment.

Just remember to release it under Apache or GPL if you build a good one. You might benefit the economy in many ways. ;)

99% Invisible's episode on refrigerated containers is relevant: http://99percentinvisible.org/episode/reefer-madness/

Read "The Box" for more history and details - http://www.amazon.com/The-Box-Shipping-Container-Smaller/dp/...

I think this story has been on HN before, but I can't find it.

There's this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3014516

Nautilus seems good at rehashing Hacker News favorite stories.

The Wire (season 2) gives an excellent insight into how docks are run (Baltimore). There's even a scene where some Dutch company wants to bring Rotterdam's automation to Baltimore.

I like things like this standardization I find it interesting almost insect-like how uniformity and simplifying tasks improves efficiency.

I'm surprised cranes and ships aren't fully automated yet.

The dockworker union is too strong.

Exactly. At the pallet level, the equipment to stack, wrap, or receive them are way too expensive. So, humans it is on both parts.

I'll also note for shipping that it's useful to have people to deal with problems caused by port regulators, pirates, and other odd situations.

Per ton, container shipping is roughly 20 times more efficient than old breakbulk shipping methods. So 95% of the labour has already been automated away.