Shipping Container Manufacturing and ABB Welding Robots

Almost everything in a shop, from shoes to phone chargers, spent part of its trip inside a steel box. Shipping container manufacturing is the business of building those boxes, and most of it now happens in a handful of large factories in China. This post follows the box from Malcom McLean's first container voyage in 1956 to the giant production bases of CIMC, then looks at the latest output figures and at the ABB welding robots already working on container lines. The last part covers painting, special containers and the problems that still slow automation.

Rows of shipping containers stacked in a container depot. Photo: TrainLearnGrow / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

How the steel box was born and first built by hand

Before containers, cargo travelled as break bulk. Dockworkers loaded sacks, barrels and crates one by one, and a ship could spend days in port. Malcom McLean, a trucking owner from North Carolina, wanted to lift whole truck bodies onto ships instead. On 26 April 1956 his converted tanker Ideal X sailed from Port Newark to Houston with 58 containers on deck. McLean's company later became Sea-Land, and by October 1966 Sea-Land boxes were being moved between ships, trucks and trains at the new Europe Container Terminals in Rotterdam.

A Sea-Land container lifted between rail wagons and trucks at Europe Container Terminals in Rotterdam, October 1966. Photo: Nederlandse Spoorwegen / Het Utrechts Archief via Wikimedia Commons (CC0)

The early boxes came in many sizes, because each shipping line built its own. That made it hard to swap containers between lines, cranes and rail wagons. In the late 1960s the International Organization for Standardization agreed common lengths, heights and corner fittings. The corner castings at the eight corners of every box are what cranes grab and what twistlocks lock into, on ships, trucks and train wagons. Standard sizes turned the container into a commodity that any factory could build to one drawing, and the 20 foot and 40 foot boxes still dominate today.

A twistlock on a container chassis, the fitting that locks into a container's corner casting. Photo: Wikimedia Commons (public domain)

Building a dry box is heavy metalwork. Steel coil is cut and pressed into corrugated wall and roof panels, then welded to a frame of base rails, cross members, corner posts and castings, before the floor and doors go in. For decades much of the welding was done by hand. Production moved to Asia and settled in China. CIMC was set up in Shenzhen in 1980 and has been the world's largest container maker since 1996. In 2016 Chinese makers agreed to switch from solvent based to waterborne paint, with the change due across the country by April 2017.

A standard 20 foot dry container with corrugated steel walls and its doors at the end. Photo: IPLManagement / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Shipping container manufacturing today in China

Three companies build most of the world's new boxes. On 6 September 2026 Container News reported first half sales for the three listed Chinese makers. CIMC sold 1,246,700 TEU of new containers, up 2 percent on the same period of 2025. SULE, part of COSCO Shipping Development, sold 958,600 TEU, up 13 percent. Singamas sold only 43,000 TEU, down 49 percent, at an average price of about US$1,613 per TEU. Together the three built about 2.25 million TEU in six months, 5 percent more than a year before.

White containers stacked at the Maersk container factory in Qingdao, China, 2012. Photo: Maersk Line / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 2.0)

Selling more boxes did not mean earning more. WorldCargo News reported on 1 September 2026 that CIMC's first half profit had dropped sharply, and the company also gave an update on a US antitrust case against Chinese box makers. Singamas is moving toward special boxes, and Container Management reported that its dry container revenue more than halved in the first half while specialised revenue rose 17 percent. Special containers, such as reefers, tanks and boxes for battery storage, need more varied welding and assembly than standard dry vans, so factories have to plan their lines for more variety.

A Maersk container on a truck chassis on a freeway. Photo: Epolk / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

In a case study, ABB describes CIMC's first automated cargo container plant in Fenggang, in southern China, where 65 ABB welding robots work across the base frame, front and back end, and general assembly areas. Twenty four ABB IRB 1410 arc welding robots weld the container base frames, a job that used to be done by hand. Other robots weld front corner posts and the corrugated front end. The cells run on ABB controllers with MultiMove, so several robots can work on one part, and ABB says the seams are more even, with fewer pores.

An ABB arc welding robot beside a positioner that turns heavy parts. Photo: Ana 2016 / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Where container factories go next with robots

Painting could be automated next. Waterborne coatings dry more slowly than the old solvent paints and need steady film thickness, and a container has large flat panels plus awkward corners and door gear. Paint robots such as the ABB IRB 5500, built for explosive paint booth air in car plants, could as a possibility handle the inside and outside coats of boxes on a moving line. Programs for long welding seams and spray paths are usually planned and tested first in RobotStudio, which saves line time when the box design changes.

An ABB IRB 5500 paint robot, a design built to work in explosive paint booth air. Photo: ABB

Workshops around the world convert containers into site offices, pop up shops, homes and battery or data centre housings, often one or two at a time. Those jobs need frames, openings and brackets welded to a used or new box, in a short run with changing drawings. A collaborative welding robot such as ABB's GoFa Cobot Arc Welding Package, which a welder teaches by moving the arm by hand, could fit that kind of shop. ABB has not announced a project like this, so treat it as a possibility.

ABB's GoFa Cobot Arc Welding Package on a welding table. Photo: ABB

Container demand swings hard with trade, as the drop from 2,264,800 TEU in the first half of 2024 to 2,147,600 TEU a year later shows, and low box prices leave little room for big investments. Corrugated panels and thin steel move as they heat, so robots need seam tracking or good fixtures to follow the joint. Factories still need skilled welders who can program the robots and fix bad seams, and fumes, sparks and heavy lifting make safety a constant job. For more examples of welding cells, see our post on rail car manufacturing.

ABB arc welding robots at work on a vehicle frame, from ABB's Robotic Arc Welding brochure. Photo: ABB

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