October 18, 2004

Logistics service provider Kombiverkehr and Lufthansa Systems are signing a contract for the creation of a capacity management system. Kombiverkehr develops, organizes and markets a Europe-wide network for combined road/rail transports. Around 23 million tons of goods are thus shifted from the road to the rails each year. The new capacity management system will support Kombiverkehr in its ongoing process of capacity control..

The optimum utilization of purchased capacity is a critical factor for Kombiverkehr's success, because with purchasing entire trains, the Frankfurt-based company also takes on the associated capacity utilization risk. In the future, the new capacity management system will support the logistics service provider handle rising numbers of transports, greater customer demands and the more complex business processes that will accompany them.

The new system will enable continual capacity control - from daily load planning, through medium-term capacity planning, all the way to long-term network planning. The system of Lufthansa Systems will compare load structures and railway carriage types to determine the best possible combination. This will allow the maximum allowable weight of a train to be utilized as efficiently as possible. The system will also improve the organization of processes and the utilization of capacity when several individual legs of a journey are booked end to end (gateway transports).

Working together, Lufthansa Systems and Kombiverkehr determined the technical requirements for the capacity management system and identified areas with the potential for optimization. The companies have reviewed the integration of the new IT architecture in Kombiverkehr's existing system landscape and have worked out an implementation plan. This successful cooperation will now continue with the joint creation of the capacity management system. Kombiverkehr will benefit here from the extensive experience of Lufthansa Systems.

"This capacity management system will provide us with a decisive competitive advantage by increasing the productivity of our network and improving our customer service. For us, the new system is an important investment in the future," said Armin Riedl, managing director of Kombiverkehr.

Note to the editors:

Lufthansa Systems is one of the world's leading IT service providers to the airline and aviation industries. As systems integrator, the wholly-owned subsidiary of the Lufthansa Group covers the entire range of IT services, including consulting, development, implementation and operation. Lufthansa Systems provides its IT infrastructure and operations services to a variety of industries. Headquartered in Kelsterbach near Frankfurt/Main, Germany, the company has branches in Germany and 14 countries and employs about 4,400 people worldwide. In business year 2003, Lufthansa Systems recorded sales of EUR 610.7 million.