A Northern Ireland company, Ireland Freight Services (IFS) Global Logistics, have been recognised by a national award.

IFS were the national winners of the Manufacturing Logistics category at the annual awards of the Institute of Logistics and Transport (ILT), presented by HRH the Princess Royal at a recent gala dinner in London.

Mr Walter Anderson the IFS Chairman said: “This National Accreditation for Logistic solutions to the Manufacturing Industry is reflective in the effort and dedication by the IFS team and our web design partners WDS Internet. We at IFS realise and appreciate that innovation and service is the oxygen of our success, we look forward to receiving continued support from the national manufacturing base in driving supply chain efficiencies forward.”

The award was given for outstanding achievements by IFS for their innovative contribution in developing and delivering a state of the art web-based system to hold inventory for companies at a Vendor Managed Inventory (VMI) hub, in close proximity to the company’s manufacturing base. The virtual warehousing and supply chain management system, called ‘Vendorvillage’ that enables manufacturers to push high value inventory off their books by creating proximity hubbing platforms for their international suppliers.

IFS who are also logistics providers to the Belfast Giants ice hockey team were also shortlisted in two other categories in the awards.

The company recently won the NI finals of the UK Interforum E-Commerce Awards (the first Logistics or Transport company ever to win), as well as narrowly missing out on the UK Final in the same award.

The IFS Group, a multi-modal logistics provider, employing 230 employees with a £25 million turnover, have been operating in Northern Ireland for the last 35 years. (SP)