While technically McLean wasn't the inventor of the container, with the US military developing the Container Express (short: Conex) system during the Korean war, he was the first to commercialize a standardized steel box that could be easily transferred between ships, trucks, and. While technically McLean wasn't the inventor of the container, with the US military developing the Container Express (short: Conex) system during the Korean war, he was the first to commercialize a standardized steel box that could be easily transferred between ships, trucks, and. When American businessman Malcolm McLean introduced his invention, the shipping container, in 1956 at first nobody thought that the metal box was going to turn the entire logistics industry upside down. While technically McLean wasn't the inventor of the container, with the US military developing. Prior to the 1950s, loading a cargo ship was a laborious process where cargo was loaded piece by piece onto a ship. His solution was to develop a standardized shipping. Early in the 20th century, the New York-based Bowling Green Lift-Van Company manufactures the first 18′ x 8′ x 8′ metal boxes, sparking a revolution in land transportation. A few decades later, in 1956, the Ideal X, a ship that holds 58 containers on its deck, sets sail from Newark Port on the. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) created a set of standard sizes in the 1960s: With set dimensions, ports could invest in cranes and equipment designed specifically for these containers. Logistics networks around the world followed suit. s valuable to the members of ancient communities. Numerous antiquarian discoveries of such con-tainers have been made all over the world, especially along the ancient silk roads that led from Asia through Persia, Phoenicia and Mesopotamia (now roughly the areas covered by Iran, Iraq and Syria) to.