CEVA in Italy crowned Logistics Company of the Year 2011

Milan, Italy, 15 December 2011 – CEVA Logistics, a leading global supply chain management company, has been presented with the Logistics Company of the Year 2011 award in recognition of its Control Tower in Milan, an innovative information hub inaugurated in September 2010. This award, which is just one of the recognitions that the Control Tower has received during its first year of operation, further confirms the high value of this platform in guaranteeing the efficient and on-time management of all supply chain phases, delivering tangible benefits to CEVA’s customers.

The award, now in its seventh year, is promoted and organized by Assologistica, the national association for logistics, along with its two bodies, the leading trade magazine Euromerci and Assologistica Cultura e Formazione which promotes the exchange of logistics knowledge and best practice among the leading companies in the sector. This annual award aims to highlight innovative processes implemented by logistics operators in Italy in order to improve the quality and increase the efficiency of supply chain management solutions. In addition, it recognizes managers and academics that have developed technological, property and environmental innovations.

Carlo Rosa, Managing Director of CEVA in Italy, said: “We are extremely proud that Assologistica has chosen to crown CEVA as the Logistics Company of the Year, this time recognizing the value of our Control Tower, a cutting-edge solution which allows us to offer an excellent and unique service to our customers. This award is testament to our commitment in implementing efficient logistics solutions and continuously improving them over time in order to meet the changing needs of our customers. By capitalizing on our Operations Excellence approach and living up to our Impeccable Execution credo, we have successfully expanded the Control Tower’s functionality to include the management of inbound freight flows in the first year of operation.. The high satisfaction expressed by our customers towards this innovative hub further confirms the appropriateness of our forward-looking investment choices.”

The Control Tower is a highly computerized area which allows CEVA to control and plan all logistics activities at both national and international levels from a single central point. The platform is structured into three areas: the Red Area is dedicated to monitoring and optimizing overall transport; the Blue Area is dedicated to the planning and optimization of logistics flows; the Grey Area is focused on monitoring alarms during the transport phases.

The inbound function was introduced in April 2011 and is managed within the Blue Area through the use of advanced information systems and a team of approximately 50 people. In this way, CEVA is able to manage the supply flows for the production plant lines by constantly monitoring the entire transport process, from the collection of materials at the suppliers, to delivery at destination plants, ensuring compliance with production schedules.

With the introduction of the new inbound services, CEVA now carries out overnight and urgent deliveries to plants and is able to manage and control the entire supply chain from the Control Tower. This ensures constant and real time visibility of all inbound and outbound, national and international transport processes for its customers, thus delivering significant advantages in process optimization.

The award ceremony took place on Friday, 2 December 2011, at the Salone delle Mostre in the Palazzo Giureconsulti of Milan, at the end of the public debate ‘The Single-point-of-entry custom, a catalyst for innovation’.