TradeMerit and Michelin North America Honored by AIAG for Driving More Than $1 Billion in Automotive Supply-Chain Efficiencies

SOUTHFIELD, Mich., Sept. 15 /PRNewswire/ -- TradeMerit Corporation, an Ottawa, Canada-based international trade and logistics service company, and Michelin North America Inc., based in Greenville, SC, are being honored by AIAG with its 2010 Corporate Achievement Award for driving supply-chain efficiencies that will save the auto industry billions of dollars over time and countless hours, by eliminating waste and streamlining processes.  

AIAG is a not-for-profit, member-supported organization that has developed a unique, collaborative approach to help companies and their suppliers tackle problems, uncover opportunities and create value. TradeMerit and Michelin will be honored by AIAG and their peers tonight at a celebration at The Henry Ford in Dearborn, Mich., along with 16 individual honorees.

"Through their memberships in AIAG and support of its collaborative process, TradeMerit and Michelin North America are helping the industry tackle pain points that one individual or corporation could not easily solve alone," said J. Scot Sharland, AIAG executive director. "They have earned special recognition for helping drive significant improvements in cost, quality and customer satisfaction across the automotive industry."  

TradeMerit is being honored for working side-by-side with the Material Offshore Sourcing (MOSS) work group to develop a new way of handling automotive supply-chain information that could reduce transportation costs by $1.7 billion over the next five years and support national security objectives as well. TradeMerit's contributions enabled AIAG to take the MOSS recommendations from theory to operational reality during a three-month pilot in Korea.

"Every company that operates globally faces challenges with moving goods and services, but one standard set of solutions is what we need to work toward for maximum efficiency," said Wael Aggan, president and chief executive officer, TradeMerit. "At TradeMerit, our mission is to create long-term sustainable partnerships to simplify the complexity of supply-chain issues, and that is why we were eager to work with AIAG on the MOSS project."

Michelin is being honored for its work on the Radio Frequency ID (RFID) B-11 Standard, which tracks an item throughout the entire supply chain. Michelin's significant contributions included leading the development of revisions to the standard, funding a report for AIAG and Odette International on RFID use and donating the use of their resources. Michelin has helped establish B-11 as a global automotive industry standard. B-11 is in the process of becoming an ISO standard.

"Michelin was the first company to implement commercially and meet the B-11 standard for North America, and we are committed to leading its ongoing development and refinement as a global standard," said Scott Pajtas, Innovation Deployment Director, Original Equipment Americas, Michelin.  

Each company and individual honored by AIAG is nominated by their peers in recognition of their outstanding leadership, contributions to deliverable developments during the past year, efforts to increase membership and volunteer participation, and service on committees and workgroups.  

About AIAG

AIAG was founded in 1982 by General Motors, Ford Motor Company and Chrysler Corp. to develop and share best practices to create a leaner, more efficient supply base. Since then, AIAG has grown and evolved to address increasingly complex global supply-chain, manufacturing and quality issues, and now has tools and processes that can help diverse industries improve their performance by protecting and enhancing corporate reputations, rooting out waste and inefficiency, uncovering cost savings and improving quality.

SOURCE AIAG