Media Coverage

This Just Out: The Latest in Logistics I.T.

Need to move heavy cargo fast, but want to let someone else figure out the best way to get it there? Integres Global Logistics can quickly locate space for you on one of 12,000 daily flights or 40,000 trailers, says Mary Thomson, the company's vice president of marketing in Rancho Cordova, Calif. Shippers who book freight through the web-based service choose from two-day, two-day express, next-day, next-day express, and next-flight service.

Integres grew out of Cargo 2000, an initiative by major airlines, forwarders, and technology firms to develop efficient and reliable air cargo services based on uniform procedures and measurable standards. Some members of the group concluded that they weren't making enough progress because companies didn't want to share sensitive data with competitors, Thomson says.

On the theory that sharing is more palatable in a revenue-producing venture, several Cargo 2000 members formed Integres in 2001. Current transportation partners in the business are American Airlines Cargo, United Cargo, Roadway Express, and UTi Worldwide. Another partner, Unisys, provides the underlying technology.

Last year, Integres launched privately branded, web-based transportation services for Roadway, United Cargo, and American Airlines Cargo. In September it debuted a service under its own name.

Each of the four transportation offerings uses a variety of carriers, but the private-label ones rely more heavily on the assets of their owners, Thomson says. If a customer uses the Roadway product, "the freight more often will run on a Roadway truck," she explains. "On the United web site, cargo will fly on a United plane more often."

On the Integres site, the routing engine is carrier-neutral, scanning all capacity available to provide the desired service at the best price, she says.

True Pricing
A shipper becomes an Integres customer by registering on the web site. When the shipper requests a quote, the system returns pricing for each of the five available services. Customers receive "true pricing," based on the actual cost to Integres, Thomson says.

For example, freight shipped Friday for delivery in two business days might cost less than freight shipped Monday because the intervening weekend allows Integres to move the goods by truck rather than air.

Integres has negotiated favorable rates and terms with a host of major airlines and trucking companies, and especially its strategic partners, Thomson says. "We give the customer access to capacity and the boarding priority they would not be able to get either directly through the airlines or through a traditional freight forwarder." The company uses a network of local cartage companies to handle pickup and delivery.

Once a customer books a shipment, staff at Integres tender the freight to a carrier. Through Electronic Data Interchange (EDI), the carrier notifies Integres when the shipment is picked up, when it leaves the origin city and arrives at the destination city, when it's put out for delivery, and when the consignee has received it. Customers can view the status of their freight on the web site or receive e-mail notifications.

Integres primarily serves the United States, although it has delivered freight to Canada and Mexico, Thomson says.

Moving Pictures
Although Integres officially launched its service in September, one early customer -- Video Products Distributors (VPD), Folsom, Calif. -- has been using it since last June. A leading distributor of movies on DVD and VHS, VPD has a tight window for delivering movies in time for their official release dates. It uses UPS to handle the majority of its shipments to retail stores and other customers in the United States.

When it acquired its first customer in Puerto Rico, VPD used UPS to ship there as well and was pleased with the service, says Rick Roberts, VPD logistics manager. But when an Integres sales rep approached him in 2001, he was interested to learn whether the company could beat UPS's pricing. "They did," he says.

There's No Turning Back
UPS's contract with the Teamster's Union was due to expire Aug. 1, and VPD needed a backup in case of a strike. So it began tendering freight for Puerto Rico to Integres. The strike did not occur, but working with Integres "has been such a pleasant experience that nobody wants to go back," Roberts says.

Each week, VPD ships videotapes, DVDs, and video games to its customer in Puerto Rico, a Blockbuster franchise with 39 stores. At VPD's Perrysburg, Ohio, facility, workers receive the movies from Hollywood studios, package them for rental, enter the orders in their computer system, and prepare the videos for shipping. They scan a bar-code on each video to add it to a shipment in the company's manifest system. When the shipment is complete, a worker types in the weight, tracking number, and air waybill number.

Rather than type shipment data into the Integres system at its web site, each Wednesday VPD extracts a file from the manifest system containing all the necessary information and then e-mails that to Integres. The pickup driver signs a printout of that shipping information. Integres ships on Wednesday for delivery in Puerto Rico on Friday, so the retail stores will have the movies before their release date the following Tuesday.

Roberts says he particularly likes tracking the progress of his packages through Integres. Every Friday, when the Puerto Rico customer's sales rep arrives at work in California, she checks the system to make sure the packages have been delivered. So far, Roberts says, there have been no service problems, though reports on the web site sometimes don't show the most recent deliveries.

If a service problem did occur, however, "we would know before the customer knew," he says. "That was one of the things we were really excited about, to be able to go to the site and see if there's a customer service issue."

VPD is considering whether to use Integres for deliveries to Alaska and Hawaii, the two other regions where it ships by air, Roberts says. "We want to see what Integres can put together in terms of price and service, then work with our customers in those areas to make sure they're comfortable with it."