Airborne established the first electronic data linkage for the Clackamas, Ore., office of ADP Dealer Services, a leading supplier of computer systems to automobile, heavy duty truck and equipment dealerships in North America and Europe. Dealer Services' capacity to ship large volumes of packages has increased about 35 percent as a result of the new streamlined system, said Tim Kauppi, ADP's shipping manager.

This new system is virtually seamless and will save time and money for any large-volume shipper. The system eliminates human error on shipping documents and thus greatly reduces customs clearance delays between the United States and Canada. This is a definite win-win for Airborne Express and ADP."

The new Airborne system pulls detailed descriptions of package contents, including content values, from inventory files, automatically adding the information to commercial shipping invoices. Before the new system was implemented, ADP had to manually type package label information, using only generic descriptions of contents. For example, ADP would describe a shipment as "software" versus the more detailed itemized descriptions now available with Airborne's QUICKLINK software.

Because the new laser-printed commercial invoices are easier to read and contain descriptive information, such as part numbers, ADP packages clear customs much faster than in the past, Kauppi said. "It has basically streamlined our international shipping process."

The new system ties invoice numbers to shipments for easy tracking. In the past, if a package were lost, ADP's Canada operations called the company's Portland office and had a worker search through shipping documents. Now, all packages are tracked by Airborne computers, and the status and location of all shipments are accessible at any time by Airborne and ADP employees. ADP's Clackamas operation ships an average of 1,900 packages to Canada each month, or about 18,000 packages annually. Most of the packages contain software.

The new computer linkage has significantly reduced human errors. By using Airborne's EDI (electronic data interchange) technology, all ADP shipments are bar-coded, enabling the company to automatically verify what it is being shipped and where. ADP uses a similar Airborne EDI system for domestic shipping.

ADP Dealer Services is a division of ADP, Inc. of Roseland, NJ. Headquartered in Hoffman Estates, Ill., Dealer Services has about 2,500 employees and serves more than 9,500 dealerships. The company's research and development facility is in Portland, Ore. More than 50 percent of the largest North American dealerships are clients of Dealer Services.