“I

t has always been a tenet of Matson’s service to provide customers with the equipment they need, in good condition, whenever they need it,” states Rich Kinney, director, equipment and inland operations.  “We continuously refresh our equipment fleet to ensure it is of the highest quality, and purchase equipment based on the feedback we receive from customers. In addition, we have a team of employees in our Oakland and Phoenix offices who track and manage all our equipment throughout the world to ensure we have the right equipment in the right place to meet our customers’ demands at all times.”

Matson has a fleet of approximately 35,000 containers of various lengths, including 26,500 dry containers and 4,000 refrigerated containers, as well as 3,200 flat racks, 900 auto frames and approximately 17,000 chassis. To keep its equipment fleet well-maintained, the company regularly purchases new equipment.  Just in the past five years, Matson has purchased 1,300 reefers, 1,050 flat racks, 14,400 dry containers, 3,800 chassis and 650 motor generators for a total cost of over $100 million. “We always take our customers’ needs into consideration when purchasing new equipment,” says Kinney.  “For instance, our most recent flat rack purchases have incorporated integral nylon straps and winches, which save customers the expense of providing their own nylon or steel straps to secure their cargo.  In addition, our flat racks have an increased internal height and a light tare weight, which gives our customers a larger interior dimension to load their cargo and allows them to load more while still meeting the maximum gross weight of state weight laws.  We also worked with our livestock shippers to build new livestock containers that have a built-in feeding and watering system and water tanks, as well as extra ventilation and drainage system and 20 windows with standoff bars to keep the livestock safely within the container.  We want to make sure our equipment is always best-suited to accommodate whatever our customers need to ship.”

Beyond providing customers with the right kind of equipment, Matson also works to ensure there is enough available equipment to meet shippers’ demands. According to Kinney, Matson has 43 equipment depots in the interior of the United States to support intermodal shippers and makes sure there is enough of the right type of equipment in the right place at all times. “Our equipment control team often considers the seasonal demands of our shippers when determining equipment needs.  For example, the team will place additional reefers in place in the Pacific Northwest for Christmas tree shipments, or 45-foot containers in the interior for the summer household goods season.  No matter what customers are shipping, they can rest assured they will have the equipment they need whenever they need it.”

To learn more about Matson’s containers, please visit our website at http://matson.com/matnav/services/hawaii_equipment.html.