Good data gets its own award

Hardly a day goes by when we don't receive an announcement about a shipper that has recognized a carrier or logistics service provider for on-time delivery, cost savings, and the like. But it's not every day that we hear about a service provider honoring a shipper.

In early April, the Army Materiel Command's Military Surface Deployment and Distribution Command honored 16 government shippers with Shipper Performance Awards for consistently submitting on-time and error-free data for shipments moved within the Defense Transportation System (DTS) last year. The recipients are government and vendor offices or organizations that book and move cargo through DTS.

The awards may be unique, but it makes good sense for the U.S. military to recognize shippers for the quality of the data they submit with their consignments, says DCV contributing editor and defense logistics expert Steve Geary, who brought the awards to our attention. "In order to make shipments flow seamlessly, we need clean data," he points out.

Awards were presented in categories for small, medium, large, and "super large" shippers and shippers of merit. Winners included various organizations and divisions within the Army & Air Force Exchange Service (AAFES), the military postal service, the Defense Logistics Agency, Defense Contract Management Agency, and the General Services Administration.