Maersk Line Orders 14,800 New Reefer Containers
Maersk Line has ordered 14,800 new reefer containers in 2016, driving the average age of its 270,000 unit reefer container fleet down to 7.9 years.
Part of the reefers replace older equipment, and add to the 30,000 reefers acquired by Maersk Line in 2015.
“We continue to invest and modernize our reefer fleet to include the latest technologies in supply chain visibility and cargo care,” said Shereen Zarkani, Head of Reefer Management, Maersk Line. “With the new equipment we will offer even stronger products across the reefer portfolio – enhancing transparency and care to our customers’ perishable products across Maersk Line’s extensive network.”
The new reefers feature built-in Remote Container Management (RCM) technology, which essentially turns each reefer into a digitally connected device and provides enhanced visibility and care to cargo across Maersk Line’s entire reefer fleet.
Speaking to the industry at the Cool Logistics conference in Bremen, Germany, Shereen Zarkani elaborated on the progress Maersk Line has made since going live with RCM last year. She said it is the company’s plan to give customers access to this technology in 2017.
“Reefer visibility only makes sense if applied to the entire fleet,” Zarkani said. “So with more than 270,000 reefers in operation it has been a massive undertaking to get to where we are today. Since we launched RCM in 2015 we matured our internal processes and gained operational experience in handling the data. We have now entered the next stage and will be ready to offer this enhanced data visibility to our customers in the coming year.”
Zarkani added that key milestones before the launch in 2017 include a customer facing IT-platform as well as customer pilots.
