Cargo Center (CC) handles a large part of the freight that leaves and arrives at Arlanda. CC is the largest air cargo terminal in Scandinavia and operates 24/7. The handling of air cargo comprises extensive and complex documentation with a lot of information exchange between airlines, customs, transporters and other clients. The manual administration of all this information was expensive and cumbersome. New demands from airlines and the lack of good IT support led to the conclusion that a new import and export system was required.

Athena Solutions (AS) performed a feasibility study to identify business processes, customer requirements and demands. A decision was made to develop a new system in-house, since none of the available systems on the market could meet CC's needs. Requirements, design and construction of the new system was done in close cooperation between AS and CC.

The export and import system is now in use at CC. The users in the terminal are connected through a wireless network and are able to send messages to airline companies and register export goods by the help of a PDA with a scanner. The office workers are always updated on what is happening in the terminal.

The main benefits of the system are increased quality and efficiency. The time required for handling of goods has been lowered from one day (best case) to a couple of hours. Information about the goods is entered automatically even before it arrives at CC. This avoids error prone manual handling and increases efficiency for both CC and their customers.

The system has been given a name: ALI - Administrative Intelligence and Logistics. ALI is being sold to other Air Cargo Terminals in Scandinavia. It is a module based, distributed system and can be sold in parts. The communication tools in ALI are being enhanced and integrated with other actors in order to create an even more efficient information exchange.