AIAG Adds 3 US Ports to Its Membership Ranks

The locations account for more than half the nation's import and export of finished vehicles

SOUTHFIELD, MI--Feb. 13, 2013: Three U.S. ports that account for more than half of the country's import and export of finished vehicles have joined AIAG to leverage the not-for-profit organization's expertise in developing ideas and solutions for an efficient automotive industry supply chain, AIAG announced today. The Port of Baltimore in Maryland, the Georgia Ports Authority and the Jacksonville Port Authority in Florida are the first ports to become members of AIAG, following the lead of Norfolk Southern Corp., a major rail and intermodal company that joined the organization last year in order to work collaboratively on challenges in logistics management.

"AIAG has a long history of working with automotive suppliers on successfully managing the supply chain. Those same processes are key to the logistics involved in transporting finished vehicles in and out of our nation's ports," said J. Scot Sharland, executive director of AIAG. "We are pleased to welcome these three ports to our membership ranks so that we can work together to identify common pain points in finished vehicle logistics and develop the solutions to address them."

The addition of the ports to AIAG will open channels of communication among the various stakeholders to improve visibility, optimization and quality standards for the finished vehicle supply chain, stretching from the factory to the dealership lot. AIAG's materials management and logistics initiatives are far-reaching and can have a significant impact on supply chain efficiency, providing guidelines, training and educational opportunities to understand the complexity and depth of supply chain issues.