The Howland Group is the founder of the US-SCC and along with investment of RedGuard, they provide ongoing leadership that facilitates collaboration for the development of the Smart Container.

The US-SCC is a unique, next-generation, collaborative, manufacturing enterprise of experienced, tested, and successful US companies. We bring together manufacturers, critical suppliers, digital solutions, global logistics and equipment service providers, and maritime public/private collaborative enterprise expertise and management.

The advantages of this strategy

• A US solution for a rapidly growing global market
• Shortened time from concept to market
• Reduces cost, waste, and energy
• Improves customer satisfaction
• Quick scalability

The US-SCC will further advance efforts to collaboratively develop, manufacture, demonstrate, and test a shipping container made from lightweight, high-strength, environmentally sustainable steel with embedded digital capabilities, that will

• Improve US manufacturing capabilities and capacity;
• Support emergency preparedness;
• Restore critical US infrastructure production;
• Critical industrial capacity; and meet national security

The project is a furtherance of an existing USTRANSCOM Cooperative Research and Development Agreement.

The US-SCC, at their own expense, is building two US manufactured smart container prototypes that will be ready for demonstration by DLA and USTRANSCOM in January 2025. These prototypes will provide the baseline for developing new domestic industrial container manufacturing capacity for a next generation smart container using US Steel’s Advanced High Strength Steel (AHSS) to reduce weight, cost, and its carbon footprint. This next generation smart container will be differentiated from existing, currently available, smart containers. The digital IOT gateway will be physically embedded the into a new US manufactured, lighter weight steel shipping container.

The US-SCC will collaborate with DLA and USTRANSCOM to manufacture, test and demonstrate the capabilities of the prototypes, and engage in spiral development to evolve a US Smart Container. The project will identify national industrial capacity needs and requirements for US smart containers for military, humanitarian, and commercial efforts and will also identify US Government and commercial policy issues for information sharing and cybersecurity.