I have a question about the software used to track containers moving through ships and ports… I’m a career computer programmer, though not in the maritime industry, and have wondered how software was developed to manage huge container volumes, especially in the early years when only mainframe computers were available…
I’m currently reading Marc Levinson’s “The Box”, and I just read this line:
"Instead, [The Port of Singapore] handled more than a million boxes in 1982… "… but at that time, neither desktop computers of any capability, nor distributed Unix-based systems, were widely available, so the software to manage all these boxes, in dozens of ports around the world, must have been based on mainframe computers?? Who created the software to handle all this?? How reliable was it?? This is a stupefying task, and had to initially be implemented on the fly, with the containers doing the flying…
Are there any articles or books that delve into the development of the software processes for managing all these containers?? I would really love to read a thoughtful examination of this field; without it, our modern container world would just descend into chaos…
A New Zealand guy whose name escapes me developed software to do the job running on a mainframe in the mid 1970’s . Stows were passed from Port to Port and it reduced the number of restows. It also greatly assisted the job of those in container control so that containers were onhire for as short a time as possible. We were able to load stability information for the ship being loaded into the program where it was stored for subsequent use.
There was even a facility to correct Bay Plans of ships loaded on the West Coast USA that were completely inaccurate then.
The guy died in a terrorist bomb explosion in Jakarta near his hotel. Wrong place wrong time.
I’ve tried doing some searching on the web for this topic, but all I find are refs to the tracking software that clients can use, to see where their container is; however, I’m more interested in the front-line software that actually collects and manages the containers in the first place, as well as the type of software that is used to track containers through the container port…
Also, I’m especially interested in the history of this software, in the early years (1960s-1970s) when all these challenges were initially developing… @Hogsnort’s post also reminds me that these programs had to calculate loading/stability status as well, while tracking the container movements…
That is him. Well remembered.
So otherwise, there’s not much history on this topic??
The Wire - Season 2 Episode 5
“computers may be useful in tracking containers.”