All of you may have seen the markings on a container, specially the door when it comes to your warehouse for packing or unpacking..
Each of these markings plays a very significant role in the transportation of the container and provides vital information to all entities in the supply chain relating to the monitoring and safety of the container and cargo during its carriage..
1) Container Number – is of course the main marking on the door.. It is an alpha numeric sequence made up of 4 Alphabets and 7 Numbers..
The container number identification system has been created by the International Standards Organisation under their code IS06346:1995(E)..
As per this code, the container identification system consists of
Owner code – 3 letters (in above example HLX)
Equipment category – 1 letter (in above example, U denoting a freight container.. Other categories being J for detachable container related equipment (such as Genset) and Z for trailers and chassis)..
Serial number – 6 numbers (numbers ONLY)
Check Digit – 1 number (numbers ONLY)
The owner code is UNIQUE to the owner of the container and the registration of this code rests with Bureau International des Containers et du Transport Intermodal (BIC).. This is to avoid any duplication of code by any shipping line or container operator..
If you don’t know who a particular container belongs to, you can always do a BIC Code Search to identify the owner of the container..
But BEWARE, the owner of the container need not necessarily be operating the container as they could have leased the container to another operator or shipping line..
2) Check Digit – although it is part of the full container number, the check digit is a VERY IMPORTANT number as it can be used to identify if the above mentioned identification sequence is valid or invalid..
For example, if you go to BIC’s Check Digit Calculator and type in the prefix – HLXU and the numbers 200841, see what you get as the Check Digit..
Impressed yet..?? And here you thought that the container prefix and number is just a series of numbers given.. ? Think again..
3) Container Owner or Lessor – This is the entity that owns or operates the container.. This could be a shipping line, like in this example (Hapag Lloyd) or a container leasing company such as Textainer who’s business is to lease containers to shipping lines that need to increase their inventory but not their assets..
4) Max Gross – In this example – 30,480 Kgs is the maximum weight that the container can carry including its own tare weight of 2,250 Kg (as shown in 7)..
This is the weight that the SOLAS VGM Certificate must show..
5) ISO Code – As per the International Standards Organisation under their code IS06346:1995(E), each container is given a unique ISO Code in order to avoid any ambiguity in naming the container..
For example a standard 20′ container is called Dry Van (DV), General Purpose (GP), Standard (SD), Normal, Dry Container (DC) etc etc in different countries..
As these terms are all different, these terms cannot be used in uniform systems that are used for transmission of data across ports, customs, shipping lines etc.. Therefore as a standard, the ISO code of 22G1 (in the above example) is used to denote that the container in question is a 20′ container 8’6″ high with a tare weight of 2,250 Kgs..
6) Classification society label for type testing – Each container is tested for its strength, cargo and seaworthiness by a classification society and this label indicates which classification society certified this box..
7) Weight of Container – This is the actual weight of an empty container and this is given by the manufacturer at the end of the manufacturing and labeling process.. This is an important weight to be considered by all ships operators and planners as this weight needs to be included when planning the ship and SHOULD NOT BE IGNORED by the planners..
Imagine the mega ships which carry around 19,000 TEUs.. If the tare of each TEU (2250 kgs) is ignored, the ship will have an unaccounted weight of 42,750,000 Kgs = 42,750 Tons.. That is asking for a disaster at sea..
However, this weight is also heavily contested by the trade and shipping lines in terms of whether this weight should be shown on the bill of lading or not, and whether the VGM weight should match the bill of lading weight or not..
8) Max. Payload – This is the maximum weight of the cargo that can be packed in the container and the mis-declaration of this weight by the customers has severe consequences both to life and property..
This is the weight that is shown on the bill of lading and to re-confirm, it DOES NOT INCLUDE THE TARE WEIGHT OF THE CONTAINER..
This weight is clearly shown on the door of the container and customers cannot feign ignorance that they were not aware of the capacity of the container..
9) Cube – This is the maximum volume in cubic capacity that can be packed into the container.. Unlike weight, it is not possible to over pack the container by volume as it will be quite evident..
While (unlike mis-declaration of weight) mis-declaration of volume may not have any physical consequence, mis-declaration of volume on a bill of lading could have some financial consequences for the buyer or seller especially if the cargo is sold by volume..
10) CSC, ACEP & Other Certifications – Every container should have a valid safety approval plate called CSC (Container Safety Convention) plate in order for it to be used in international trade.. This is in accordance with the provisions of the International Convention on Safe Containers of 1972..
The role of this CSC plate is to confirm that the container has been inspected and found to be in a condition suitable for transportation on board the ship..
This plate has all the details of the Owners, Technical Data, and ACEP information.. ACEP being short for, Approved Continuous Examination Programme.. In short every 30 months a container must be turned into a Container Depot for examination..
