Logistics – Shanghai Metal Corporation

Shipping Container Bunkers – The Cure for Natural Disasters and Terrorism?

Due to their widely applicable physical features, shipping containers have become a good alternative for affordable housing, mobile retail and building hotels just to name but a few. Shipping containers can also be used as protective shelters for natural disasters or terrorist attacks.

There are a lot of options for choosing appropriate material for building a safe bunker. Even though shipping container is not possibly the best alternative, due to its wide availability and cheap price, for average consumers it is perhaps the only option. A used shipping container can be purchased with approximately US$ 2000. The United States use over a million shipping containers annually to import products from abroad but because it is expensive to ship them back, most of them stay in the US. According to some estimates there are over 700,000 used shipping containers laying in US ports waiting for new use.

Even though containers’ walls are designed to resist rough weather even in extreme conditions, most people like to bury their container bases in order to make it invisible. Still, one needs to take into consideration that the containers’ steel roofs are not made to last heavy loads. Containers are designed to lie on their four strong corners. The four corners also enable stacking various layers of containers. So therefore, after digging a hole for the container one should design a frame that supports adding a gabion basket on the container. The gabion basket filled with rocks will protect the container. See original articles for more detail.

Where the containers’ exterior surrounding has some limitations, the interior design is basically free for users’ own imagination. Today some containers come with a electric generator and bathroom solutions making the containers livable apartments.

Shanghai Metal Corporation has a long experience in offering high quality containers for shipping and housing. For more details of our containers and container houses, please see our website. Please also follow us on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Instagram. You can also download our mobile application by scanning the QR code below.

Tuomas P. // SMC Editor

Pictures and original articles: Ttora.com, Treehugger.com, Foreign Policy Research Institute, Sourceable.net, Prepper-recources.com, Containerauction.com, Emyplanb.wordpress.com, followingfuji1.blogspot.com, Luxtica.com,

Shipping Container Swimming Pools!

As the readers of our former articles have seen, shipping containers have others ways of use besides logistics. Containers are not only convenient in student housing, hotel industry, affordable housing and retail, they also work as nice swimming pools.

A traditional swimming pool’s installation costs might be between US$6000 and $50,000 not to mention excavation and decking costs. A shipping container, on the other hand, can be purchased with approximately $2000. The additional costs consists of making the pool water proof by lining the interior with a water-proof lining or welding and painting the interior. Also, regular pool filters, pumps and fixtures should be fitted to the container as well.

Shipping container pools have attracted crowd in many public events. For instance the fashion brand Tommy Hilfiger introduced a container swimming pool in Berlin’s Bread and Butter fashion trade show in 2011. Also the city of New York has arranged some container pool parties in Manhattan.

Also consumers have engaged into container pools. Including Stefan Beese, An experimental architect who used a 30 cubic cargo container to turn his New Orlean’s backyard into a luxurious swimming zone. What’s more, he only needed about $5,000 to $7,000 to do that. You can read his whole story through this link.

If you are looking for an inexpensive swimming pool solution you might want to consider using a shipping container. Shanghai Metal Corporation has been a reliable provider of shipping containers for years. Our open top containers can become excellent swimming pools. For winter swimmers, we also offer refrigerated containers.

Please also follow us on our social media platforms.

Please also check our new mobile application by scanning the QR code below.

#BuildingValueAcrossTheGlobe

Tuomas P. // SMC Editor

Drunk Man Found In Container Bound For The USA

Cars, food, lego pieces – shipping containers have been known to carry all kinds of items. But a product unique to shipping was found this time last year: a drunken man.

Jiang Wu was supposed to be staying in a B&B in the eastern Chinese city of Qingdao. In his drunken stupor he’d somehow mistaken a shipping container at a dockyard for his room, wandered in and fell asleep. The next morning he woke up and panicked. He found himself in a pitch black sealed shipping container, hung-over and trapped. His one saving grace was that he at least had his mobile phone. He called his friends, the police, anyone who could find. Unfortunately for him, it was not that easy:

“His problem was … that he couldn’t tell us which container he was in, and there were thousands of them stacked on top of each other,” Qingdao Police Spokesman.

Police arrived and asked Mr Wu to bang on the walls of his container. With only an hour to go until his container was due to sail, he was found 60 feet high.

“He’s very lucky. If he’d been asleep for another hour the next stop would have been America,” said a dock worker.

He was fortunate. There are currently over 17 million shipping containers in the world, and five or six million of them are currently shipping around the world on vessels, trucks, and trains. In total, they make around 200 million trips a year.

Approximately 97% of all shipping containers are manufactured in China. For example, Shanghai Metal manufactures shipping containers. We are the leading manufacturer and supplier in China. From the acquisition of raw materials, packaging and exportation, SMC ensures only the best quality of products. By assigning professional experts at every stage of production, we ensure continuous support in our worldwide business. To find out more, please visit our website, LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Or you could try our new mobile app by scanning our QR code.

You can also read more articles by our team at SMC:

Containers – The New Political Soapbox

Move Along Airplanes – Submarines Overtake Travel

Thor’s Hammer: The Science

Shipping Container City – Shanghai Immigrant’s Homes

Can You Do A 360 Degree Loop On A Swing Set?

Become Bullet Proof …Using Water

Counterfeit Money Cases

LEGO Lands On British Shores

Innovative Uses of Soap

Air Quality – What Can Be Done?

Team Building Exercises – A New Spin

How Much Petrol Costs Internationally

The Antarctican Training Programme – Could You Make It?

What Is The Mirror Paradox?

Do Oil Discoveries Cause Conflict?

Should We All Switch To Cycling?

Where Did ‘Loom Bands’ Come From?

Are You Apocalypse Ready?

Could You Abseil Down Big Ben?

Building Your Dream Kitchen

How A Tiny Anchor Can Hold A Whole Ship

Did You Know There Are 14 Kinds Of Spoon?

How To Make A Statement At Business Networking Events

How Do Telephones Actually Work?

Container Houses – The Next Big American Dream

The container housing industry is becoming mainstream as it is now a sub category of affordable housing. Building a home out of shipping containers enables also medium income consumers to hire an architect in a very reasonable price. Thereby, container homes might be the next American dream.

Companies have also noticed the advantages of container housing. For instance Starbucks has already installed its container coffee shops in Seattle and London. Container homes also come with a pretty nice design.

One of the benefits of shipping containers is their modularity. They are made as same sized and designed to be piled up and fit optimally in cargo ships. Containers are like Lego blocks. You can pile them up and thereby even create a multiple floor or a multiple wing mansion.

Shipping containers are also designed to be able to resist rough weather in seas. Thereby they are made of really durable and tough material that ensure the safety of a container home. In addition, the material is really simple to modify. Cutting, reforming and other modifications are done by welding which is a simple and cheap procedure. Building a nice patio with a jacuzzi is suddenly affordable.

Also one great thing about containers is that their are available in all all over the world and their transportation is extremely convenient. Containers are designed to fit in a standard shipping cargo leaving no blank space in the ships. Because of the new mainstream use of containers, their weight-to-value ratio is to increase.

The benefits of container homes have been recognized worldwide. For instance, in Finland, container housing is becoming a great solution for offering affordable student homes. Please read about more the Finns’ solution to student housing in our blog. Also the world’s hotel industry is going wild of containers as new companies offering transportable accomodation solutions emerge. Container hotels is also in a luxury top-end category in the hotel industry. Please read more about luxury container hotels here.

China is a major exporter of shipping containers and Shanghai Metal Corporation is one of the leading businesses in that field. To know more about our container houses, villas, hotels and offices, please visit our website. Also follow us on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Instagram. You can also download our new mobile application by scanning the QR code below.

#AddingValueAcrossTheGlobe

Tuomas P. // SMC Editor

Pictures and original articles: Smartplanet.com, Ecopressptc.com, Inthralld.com, Homedsgn.com, Buzzfeed.com, Bobvila.com, Australian Council of Trade Unions, Wikipedia, Prefabfan.com

First Camel Milk Products Shipped to Europe

The dairy product business is a highly competitive industry in Europe with players such as Danone Group, Unilever and Nestlé owning the biggest market shares. A United Arab Emirates based company is differentiating itself from the biggest players by shipping camel milk to Europe.

The Emirates Industry for Camel Milk and Products is now bringing its camel milk products to European consumers. It is the first company that the European Commission has granted the license to ship camel milk products to Europe. The first products under the ‘Camelicious‘ brand were shipped in 2013 and they consisted of camel milk powder, fresh camel milk and camel whey powder.

Camel milk is a really low fat type of milk and has more calcium than any other milk. Also its Vitamin C content is 3-5 times higher than cow’s milk. There are no known allergies for camel milk and also people suffering from lactose intolerance are able to digest it.

Shipping Camel Milk is also a new application for cold chain logistics. The cold chain involves the transportation of temperature sensitive products along a supply chain through thermal and refrigerated packaging methods and the logistical planning to protect the integrity of these shipments. There are several means in which cold chain products can be transported, including refrigerated trucks, refrigerated cargo ships as well as by air cargo.

Shanghai Metal Corporation sells refrigerated containers to help businesses to maintain their cold chain during the whole supply chain. If you are interested in our temperature-controlled containers, please visit our website. Also follow us on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. You may also download our mobile application by scanning the QR code below.

Tuomas P. // SMC Editor

Pictures and original articles: The Geography of Transport Systems, Middle East Online, Camelicious, whereisdarrennow.com

Introducing a New Genre in Motorsports!

If you are a friend of motor sports, such as F1, WRC, Moto GP, speed racing or NASCAR, you might also want to experience something new. In Canada they have developed a special category for motor sports – the forklift rally.

A contender racing through a course.

The Forklift Rally is a competition for people who work in constructions, logistics and material handling and whose daily job includes operating with a forklift. The competition aims to measure people’s speed and efficiency in operating a forklift. The first Forklift Rally competition took place in 1997 and has been since then arranged by the Canadian Materials and Distribution Society (CMDS).

Forklifts can be used for other sports besides racing. Here is for example a demonstration of forklift basketball.

The rally consists of two phases. The first phase is a written knowledge test that measures knowledge about the industry standards. In the second phase, the contenders navigate through a course in which they need to avoid colliding with cones as well handle their loads safely. The contenders will be evaluated by judges according to the quality of the contenders work and lap times.

Forklift soccer.

This year’s BC Forklift Rally will take place on Saturday September the 13th in British Columbia. The organizers offer the best contenders 4000 Canadian dollars prize money in total. At the venue you can also enjoy forklift soccer, basketball and bowling.

Forklift bowling.

If you want to participate and looking for some wheels, we have them in Shanghai Metal Corporation. We offer premium forklifts that will take you to the podium. Our forklifts are also excellent for handling daily routines of loading objects safely. To know more about our forklifts, please visit our site. Also follow us on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. You may also download our new mobile application by scanning the QR code below.

Tuomas P. // SMC Editor

More information about the Forklift Rally can be found in the official website. See also more pictures about the event on the organizer’s Flickr site.

Bullish Expectations for the Logistics Property Market in China

With the advent of changing consumption patterns in the mainland economy, the logistics property market is expected to increase at an incredible rate. Despite recent slowdowns in trade, some analysts predict that by 2029 the value of the logistics property will grow to a figure of about US$2.5 trillion. Much of this expected property value growth is fueled by consumption-lead changes within the mainland economy. According to the global real estate consultancy, Colliers International, “The total value of investment in warehouses and distribution centers there jumped 38.8 percent year on year to 3.2 billion yuan (HK$4.04 billion) last year, while the number of deals surged 85.7 percent.”

The surge in property values can be attributed to the law of supply and demand. Access to land remains problematic as local governments still remain hesitant to allocate the land to the logistics industry. Some corporations, however, are overcoming this property crunch by partnering other financial institutions to offer lucrative deals. One such company is Shanghai based Global Logistic Properties.

Global Logistic Properties is China’s largest owner of warehouses and distribution centers. It is betting on the unencumbered growth of the logistics property market, and as such is seeking to boost access to land. To achieve this Global Logistics Properties has signed a US$2.5 billion equity agreement with three financial firms, the Bank of China, Beijing-based China Life Insurance and private-equity firm Hopu Investment management.

If Beijing’s promise of economic growth based on increased domestic consumption is realized, logistics storage facilities such as those sought by Global Logistics Properties will be in high demand. New storage facility properties will enable faster delivery times to Chinese consumers as well as same-day delivery options.

Such storage facilities are increasing in importance, as e-commerce represented 22 percent of Global Logistics leased area in the country in 2014, up from 4 per cent in 2010.

To view the Logistical areas in which Shanghai Metal Corporation operates please refer to the below links.

For products related to the the maritime transport industry, click here

To view additional metal and construction products as well as SMC company information check out our website: click here

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Source: Chiang, Langi, and Peggy Sito. “Logistics Property Market Takes off in China as Focus Shifts to Consumption.” South China Morning Post. N.p., 18 Mar. 2014. Web.