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British International Freight Association Awards AEI Prestigious 'Gold Award' For Logistics Excellence

AEI's Ocean Freight Services Also Honored by Association

STAINES, UK (January 25, 1999) -- The British International Freight Association (BIFA) has awarded AEI the organization's prestigious "Gold Award" for Logistics and Distribution. The award recognizes AEI's success in helping businesses effectively manage their global supply chains.

In addition, AEI won a BIFA "Freight Service Award" in the Seafreight category. The award honored AEI's strong NVOCC services--which now provides scheduled service to 170 ports worldwide--and its commitment to creating electronic links with major shipping lines.

Colin Young (left), UK development director of AEI, and Roger Blacklock, divisional manager of the British International Freight Association with the BIFA Gold Award for Logistics & Distribution. They are joined by Steve Banks, AEI's Manager Business Solutions and David Lara, commercial director UK.

AEI received the prestigious awards at a gathering of 400 industry executives in London, sponsored by BAA Air Cargo.

BIFA, whose membership is comprised of 1,200 organizations, selected AEI for the top logistics award after a rigorous screening process. In selecting AEI, the BIFA judging panel said, "AEI has listened and responded to the needs of their customers, and through a series of developments and acquisitions, built its business to deliver services across the entire supply chain.

"AEI's success has been built on the ability to understand both its customers' cultures and business, the availability of quality information to customers, quality information technology solutions, and being pro-active in the improvement of a customers' supply chains," the panel said.

This is the first time AEI has won the BIFA Gold Award for logistics and distribution. Since 1990, it has won four BIFA Air Freight Gold Awards for its achievements in implementing ISO 9002, its IT systems and aviation security program.

"We have set a high standard of excellence, and we have developed a strong track record of designing logistics solutions tailored to the specific needs of each customer," said Colin Young, AEI's UK Development Director. "As our role has evolved and expanded, we continue to see growing demand from customers for our supply-chain management services."

To win one of BIFA's Freight Service Awards, a company must be nominated by at least three customers. In its written submission to the judging panel, AEI provided case studies on its work with two major customers. Using its logistics expertise, AEI was able to produce a series of valuable benefits for these organizations.

For one customer, AEI reduced worldwide average "cycle times"--the time between receipt of an order and final delivery--from 30 days to eight days currently--with plans to cut cycle time down to four days within the next six months. AEI also helped the customer shorten its domestic UK cycle times from 12 days to two days.

In both cases, the customer gained a competitive edge by reducing its inventory-carrying costs while improving the quality of its delivery performance.

For another customer, AEI was able, in only nine months, to balance global inventory flows with customer demand, enhance efficiency by centralizing inventory at a single location, and reduce transportation costs by matching the mode of delivery to the requirements of each order. Through this strategy, the customer was able to end wasteful inventory accumulation, and sharpen its delivery performance at a greatly reduced cost.

To support those objectives, AEI developed a customized database that facilitated the processing of supplier invoices to the customer. It also created a management-reporting system that feeds critical shipment data to the customer daily, weekly and monthly. The system enables managers to perform timely traffic lane analyses to weigh carrier performance against the cost of the service.

In the seafreight category, AEI showed how it helped a major automotive supplier cut transportation costs and achieve end-to-end visibility of product moving across its supply chain.

"Our success comes from hard work, innovation and a thorough understanding of the needs of each customer," Young said. "Our people are skilled at leveraging AEI's capabilities to add unique value to the customer relationship. As a result, AEI becomes embedded as an indispensable part of a customer's enterprise."

Headquartered in Darien, CT, AEI is a world leader in integrated logistics services, delivering multi-modal transportation, warehousing and distribution, customs brokerage and information management solutions across a network of 711 locations in 135 countries.

For further information please contact:
Jamie Roche
Public Relations Limited
Tel: 44 1753 621666
Fax: 44 1751 621888

Candace Bouchard
Tel: (203) 655-5792
Fax: (203) 655-5895
exocb@aeilogis.com