Bill Brassington is an independent safety and security consultant in the freight supply chain with nearly 20 years experience in container industry. Bill joined P & O Containers as the global maintenance manager which enabled him to gain detailed knowledge of the strengths and weakness of the freight container. Part of the work that Bill undertook at P&O was the development of a maintenance and repair system that allowed very detailed analysis of damage and the subsequent repairs.   

Following the merger of P&O with Nedlloyd, Bill then joined GE SeaCo Services, one of the largest leasing company in the world as their Engineering and Technical Services Manager which allowed him to extend his knowledge into the design of all container types. He worked on many new designs for integral refrigerated and tank container as well as refining designs for flatracks and the cellular friendly pallet wide SeaCell container.

As part of his work Bill has always played an active role in health and safety issues and as a consequence of which become an active member of the International Organisation for Standardisation’s Technical Committee 104 (freight containers) and is now the Chairman of the Sub-committee responsible for special containers (TC 104 / SC 2). He also attends the International Maritime Organisation’s Dangerous Goods, Solid Cargo and Containers Sub Committee as a NGO technical expert and regularly participates in working groups involved with container safety and security.

Bill’s knowledge of flatrack containers brought him to his first International Safety Panel meeting held in the Sea Containers’ office in London and since then he has contributed to many of the safety issues relating to container design and usage. He has produced a number of Briefing Pamphlets, including, Safe handling of tank containers (published jointly with ITCO), Safe Handling of flexitanks, Safe Handling of Flatracks, and has revised pamphlets, such as Container Terminal safety. Bill has a detailed knowledge of container safety and has participated in, and presented, seminars on many container safety related issues, including a day seminar to the Canaries and West Africa Chapter of ICHCA International.

For the last six years Bill has provided consultancy to the container industry and has developed his skills to cover not only the safety and security of the container, but also has been heavily involved with cargoes carried. He is the author of the research study "Safety in the supply chain in relation to packing containers" published by the International Labour Organisation (2011). His last project with the UN agencies was acting as consultant editor for the revised “Code of practice for packing cargo transport units (CTUs)” for the International Maritime Organisation, International Labour Organisation and United Nations Economic Commission for Europe.  This publication is currently passing through the three governing committees seeking approval for the final version.

Bill continues to play an active part in container and transport supply chain safety and security providing independent investigation in cause analysis of incidents and will continue to strive to improve safety, reduce risk, educate and inform to and for those involved in the freight supply chain.