Vital links

By Staff -- Logistics Management, 8/1/2000

Historically, freight forwarders have served as intermediaries between the shipper and the line-haul carriers that handled the ocean and air legs of the journey. As shippers look for time-definite, door-to-door shipments, however, both air and ocean freight forwarders have shown that they can play a vital role in the supply chain.

That wasn't the view several years ago. At the start of the decade, some questioned the long-term viability of domestic airfreight forwarders in particular, as the integrated carriers that own fleets of aircraft and trucks captured huge volumes of their domestic airfreight business. But the forwarders have confounded earlier predictions of doom by responding to marketplace challenges with innovative and customized services.

Today's freight forwarder, both air and ocean, maintains shipper loyalty by offering highly valued services. These offerings include customs clearance, logistics management, information technology, and special-freight handling. Many focus on specific overseas markets or commodities, such as perishables or high-value goods.

This year, our readers awarded laurels for service excellence to five forwarders: Expeditors International, Pilot Air Freight, Fritz Companies, MSAS Global Logistics, and Danzas AEI. Repeat winners from the previous year were Expeditors, Pilot, MSAS, and Danzas AEI (at that time, Air Express international). Two of the six winners for this year—MSAS and AEI—have recently become part of larger transportation entities through mergers.

It should also be noted that our survey was changed two years ago to include both air and ocean forwarders. Prior to 1999, the quality awards were limited to air forwarders. The survey was changed to better reflect the marketplace, given that many forwarders handle both air and ocean transportation.

The forwarders' recognition of the importance of time-definite service is perhaps demonstrated by the jump in the average grade for on-time performance. Last year, forwarders earned a 9.62. This year, that score climbed to 10.40. Value scores also improved, rising from 7.07 last year to 7.20 this year. The information-technology score, however, stayed the same at 3.91.

On the other hand, our survey indicates that forwarders overall stumbled a bit on customer service. The score for that attribute declined from 7.22 last year to 6.99 this year. The grade for equipment and operations also suffered slightly, falling from 3.80 to 3.75.

Overall, shippers still place a strong emphasis on forwarders' ability to deliver the goods on time. Some 79 percent of respondents to our survey this year said the most important criteria for choosing forwarders was on-time performance.