In 2016 John Willis was with Docker and he gave a talk where he casually recommended a book called The Box [1] about how shipping containers have shaped the modern world. When I was reading it there was a part where they talk about how the logistics optimization problem caused the major shippers to be some of the earliest adopters of computers. Interesting book.
That book has a lot of interesting lessons to draw from [1] and that was even before they became a ubiquitous analogy for various things related to software containers. Sun's Jonathan Schwartz was talking up this book in the late 90s.
Three I picked out were:
- Existing infrastructure matters (e.g. SuezMax)
- Standards matter (container size and handling needed to be standardized)
- Process matters (e.g. containers needed changes to the way loading and unloading was done, and hence changes to labor agreements, at major ports)
The podcast "Containers" also covers how shipping containers have shaped the mordern world — well worth a listen, though I don't recall it mentioning this aspect of their logistics.
[1] - https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/316767.The_Box