Patents for shipping containers with reinforced corners, which McLean made available to the ISO through the issue of a royalty-free lease, enabled modularised cargo with a considerable reduction in a ship’s load and unload time, leading directly to a global decline in the need for longshoreman. Corner castings (ISO 1161:1984) combined with the Twistlock system meant that crane operators could open and close stacked containers automatically at a distance. What had cost around $6 a ton to load, with the introduction of modularised containers, cost only 16 cents a ton. McLean also invented a way to lift patients from stretchers on to hospital beds, though his opinion of hospital corners is unknown.