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VARSITY LOGISTICS UPGRADES SUPPORT FOR AIRBORNE EXPRESS
Ground Delivery Service and airborne@home now accessible
San Francisco, CA. July 16, 2001. Varsity Logistics, Inc., the pioneer of integrated small package shipping solutions for the IBM iSeries (formerly AS/400), today announced that it has upgraded its Airborne Express Carrier Compliance Kit (CCK) to include two popular services offered by Airborne Express—its newly-launched Ground Delivery Service (GDS) and airborne@home business-to-residential delivery service. This newly expanded CCK will allow Varsity customers to integrate Airborne's expanded ground and business-to-residential delivery services into their shipping standards, and upload electronic manifest information directly to Airborne.
As of today, Varsity is the one of the first transportation management solution providers for the IBM iSeries to support GDS. Launched in April, Airborne's Ground Delivery Service utilizes a comprehensive ground hub network to offer its customers a time-definite, cost-efficient solution for shipments not requiring expedited delivery.
"Varsity is excited to rollout these two new Airborne services to our customer base," said Tony Phillips, Product Manager for Varsity. "This is yet another step in our ongoing efforts to provide more flexibility to our customers."
Varsity customers wanting to ship parcels to residential addresses also have access to airborne@home, Airborne's "best-of-breed" business-to-residential delivery solution as developed in conjunction with the United States Postal Service. Airborne transports shipments using its extensive sort hub network to one of more than 24,000 local Destination Delivery Units (DDUs) operated by the Postal Service within 3 to 4 days. Local Postal carriers then deliver the packages to their residential destinations the next day. They can be tracked along the way, from the factory loading dock to the DDU, through Airborne's state-of-the-art tracking system, and ultimately to the customer through the USPS delivery confirmation service.
One final feature of Varsity's Airborne Express CCK is the electronic manifest upload. This allows automatic, electronic transfer of shipment data to Airborne for all delivery service types. No more need for customers to print a paper manifest and hand it to the driver. Shipment information is uploaded directly into Airborne's mainframe, ensuring quicker and more accurate hand off of information.
"We are pleased that Varsity customers will now have access to Airborne's comprehensive suite of shipping and logistics solutions," said Joy Williams, Airborne's Director of Customer Technology.
About Varsity Logistics
Founded in 1989, Varsity Logistics, Inc. is a pioneer of integrated Transportation Management Systems (TMS) designed for the AS/400 platform. Varsity's supply chain execution suite manages the fulfillment of orders initiated through both e-commerce and traditional sales channels via third-party carriers. ShipSoft, the core of Varsity's offering, automates the shipping process by providing automatic weigh/rate/label services, rate shopping, multi-weight consolidation, "bill as/ship as" options, and electronic manifesting for small package, LTL (Less Than Truckload) and international parcel shipments. Varsity is based in San Francisco, California.
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