NEWSIntegrated reefer 3rd quarter 2016 Cargo care & Creating value By Soren Leth Johannsen, Chief Commercial Officer Enabling our clients to ship blueberries, lychees and other perishable fruits using Star Cool CA technology once again underlines our position as the most inventive supplier of complete reefers – increasing cargo care for shippers and creating value for operators. Another example is related to the remote monitoring mentioned in the LinkedIn article. The Star Cool machine (also referred to in the article as ‘StarCare’ in its CA version) feeds a wide range of data to any standard monitoring system. Just some of the data recorded includes fresh air ventilation setting, humidity, actual temperatures, CO2 and O2 levels (CA version). This capability will soon be expanded to include integrated monitoring of actual energy consumption and diagnostics as well. In this edition of Integrated Reefer News, you can read about a breakthrough in bringing new markets within reach for both the growers and transporters of blueberries with our advanced Star Cool CA+ system. In terms of creating value while preserving first class cargo care, ‘StarConomy’ software stands out by providing previously unseen energy savings using Star Cool machines. These savings have the potential to be measured in millions of US Dollars. In today’s reefer market, price is often the focal point of discussion. This is probably fuelled by healthy competition among manufacturers combined with extremely difficult market conditions for container lines, making upfront investment savings especially appealing. This naturally raises the question as to how MCI can continue to invest in cargo care technology and innovation while remaining competitive. One of our customers, Maersk Line, recently posted an interesting article on LinkedIn about reefer transportation and cargo care. Part of the introduction rang a familiar bell: ‘Customers are no longer satisfied with a reliable shipping schedule. They are looking for cargo care reliability throughout the supply chain, particularly those transporting perishable products’ Robbert Van Trooijen, Chief Executive Asia Pacific Maersk Line https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/reliability-means-more-than-vesselschedules-how-can-van-trooijen Mr Van Trooijen’s viewpoint was related to reefer container monitoring (RCM) making cargo care and reliability transparent throughout the whole shipment. The MCI reefer box is designed for cargo care by being as hygienic as possible. One of the ways this has been achieved is by ensuring that visible sealant is not necessary. By hidden internal connections you avoid bacteria, dirt and chemicals to become trapped in sealant. Designed hygiene simultaneously offers added value in the form of lower operational costs, as hidden sealant never needs to be replaced. The ‘alliance’ concept does not reward individual long-term thinking While cooperation in alliances among container lines has a positive impact on vessel slot utilisation and port frequency, it unfortunately also constrains long-term thinking. Slot-sharing agreements measure reefers in the same way as dry containers. For some container lines, this results in ordering the cheapest possible reefer equipment, even though it consumes large amounts of energy. This is based purely on the logic that their reefers will spend 50% of the time or more on other alliance partners’ vessels, where no credit is given for energy-efficient reefers. USD 600 today in lower CAPEX or USD 6,000 over 12 years in lower OPEX? For some container lines, the answer is not always straightforward. Fortunately for us, the large numbers of existing and new customers who have voted in favour of this principle with their wallets during 2016 means that our market shares are as strong as ever. The Qingdao production lines for MCI Box and Star Cool machines are now running on two shifts and we are ramping up production for the coming season in South America at our MCI San Antonio factory in Chile. I wish you every success for your business and hope you will enjoy reading the Q3 edition of Integrated Reefer News.
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