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Packaging 'ahoy'

Congressional mandates on ocean shipping security are expected to stimulate packaging and container technology.

There are a number of high- and low-technology ways to help safeguard containerized shipments. The military demonstrates an auto
There are a number of high- and low-technology ways to help safeguard containerized shipments. The military demonstrates an auto

Packaging departments have long considered the requirements of shipboard containers, says Ralph Drayer, longtime chief of logistics for Procter & Gamble Co., Cincinnati, OH, and now chairman of Supply Chain Insights. Shape and size of outer product packaging dictates pallet fit, for one thing, and arranging pallets neatly inside containers is important. So is keeping the packages from getting crushed once inside the container. So the stability of primary and secondary packaging has long been an ocean-shipping consideration.

But since 9/11, packagers have added security to their container concerns, especially with regard to ocean-arriving imports that are presumed vehicles for terrorists and their weapons of destruction. Packaging purists might not consider the electronic seals and locks that are the container imperative du jour an issue in their domain.

But the seals are to containers as bar codes are to primary packages, and the seals that Congress wants to see proliferate will eventually migrate from the container to the actual package itself.

Moving in same direction

Congress’s primary concern is national security, but ports, shipping companies and package shippers themselves seem anxious to jump-start the move toward container security for theft avoidance as much as for protection against Al-Qaeda. Regardless of the motives, the vehicle for the stimulus will be the conferenced version of already-passed House (HR 3983) and Senate (S 1214) maritime security bills.

A key provision in the House bill would obligate the Department of Transportation to develop performance standards “to enhance the physical security of shipping containers, including standards for seals and locks.” The Senate passed its bill without any specific reference to container security. Both bills would require ports to develop elaborate new security plans that would surely include closer tracking of containers and their contents.

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