CON-WAY Adds More E-Commerce Functions to Website; Company Cites Growth and Long Term E-commerce Strategy as Reasons.

Business Editors/Automotive Writers

ANN ARBOR, Mich.--(AutomotiveWire)--April 27, 2000

Citing a growing number of freight management transactions being conducted on its website by customers and a long-term corporate commitment to e-commerce, Con-Way Transportation Services, a subsidiary of CNF, Inc. (NYSE:CNF) announced the addition of three new service features available on the company's website www.con-way.com.

"More and more of our customers are managing their freight in today's e-commerce environment via our website. Access to shipment information before, during and after shipment movements brings additional efficiency and value to our customers and CON-WAY. These new features are only the beginning and represent a small part of our long-term e-commerce strategy. We will meet customer needs for information in the new economy with easy-to-use tools for completing transactions and managing their business on our web site," said Bryan Millican, executive vice president, sales and marketing.

The three new customer features include an on-line function that allows electronic communication of a bill-of-lading and pickup notice, a Canadian currency translation table, and several reports that give customers a detailed summary of shipping transactions and the delivery status of specific shipments.

The new electronic bill of lading feature will allow customers to fill out a complete less-than-truckload bill of lading on the web site and transmit it to CON-WAY. This will act as a notice for shipment pickup and provide CON-WAY with complete bill data electronically. "This is a very easy-to-use function. The screen starts by confirming the customer name and address which comes from the information captured when the customer registers. On-screen prompts take the customer through the process of entering all the needed information," said Doug Stotlar, executive vice president of operations for CON-WAY.

"We still check the information that was electronically captured when we pick up the shipment," said Stotlar. According to Stotlar, checking the captured data will provide a quality control step to ensure the shipment data record gets off to an accurate start.

CON-WAY's electronic bill of lading has been designed with additional functionality beyond the normal capturing of origin, destination, commodity description, weight and National Motor Freight Classification information. "We held customer focus groups as we were developing the electronic bill of lading. In these groups we identified data elements and codes unique to customer processing systems that could be added. The electronic document can capture additional customer-unique data and codes that will enable the customer's accounting systems to operate more efficiently when we send an invoice and the transaction cycle moves to completion. This data could help customers avoid manual entry of information into a payables system and could also enable automated journal entries to complete expense allocation within their organization," said Stotlar.

"Providing this type of value-added e-commerce capability to our customers is exciting. We're bringing real benefit to customers that goes beyond the traditional freight transport functions. The electronic capture of a modest amount of customer-unique data at the beginning of the transaction can pay real dividends later as the transaction is completed. With the right coordination of information and systems we can increase productivity, reduce costs and increase customer satisfaction throughout the entire supply chain," said Millican. CON-WAY believes the benefits of these changes will take some time to be utilized by all participants. Customer systems that restrict the information on the bill of lading to the traditional inputs will have to be reviewed.

CON-WAY officials said that later this year the company will further enhance the electronic bill of lading by allowing registered customers to populate the document with information from drop-and-click selection menus. Lists will be made available of commodities shipped by each customer and the consignees they most frequently ship to. This will reduce the time needed to complete the bill-of-lading and will also increase accuracy of the data entries.

The currency feature is available to all site visitors in the QuickTools drop-down screen on the home page. The other two functions are found in the PowerTools drop-down screen on the web page. Access to PowerTools requires user registration since the function provides customer-specific transaction data that can only be viewed under secured conditions.

The Canadian currency feature is a table of weekly translation rates used by CON-WAY to calculate invoices and was set up in preparation for a major expansion of CON-WAY service within Canada that will take place on May 1. The new feature provides a quick reference for CON-WAY customers who need their invoices converted into Canadian dollars. The conversion table includes a weekly history of rates back through September, 1999. The table is updated each Monday, except on holidays. The currency translation data is provided by US Bank of Portland, Oregon.

"The open market created under the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) has expanded significantly during the last two years. We see great opportunity for business expansion within the Canadian market as well as in the international market within the U.S. and Mexico," said Millican. "Having currency conversion information on our site is an additional service to the growing number of CON-WAY customers who are now taking advantage of NAFTA," added Millican.

The transaction reports being added to the CON-WAY web site will include a summary report of all shipment activity during the past 13 months for each shipping and receiving site. A second report shows all shipments that have been put in "exception" status at the time of delivery. The largest set of exception status designations will identify shipments that could not be delivered immediately when they arrived at the destination service center. Typically, these types of shipments require an appointment for delivery, were refused delivery by the consignee or were trapped in a trailer with other shipments destined to the same consignee.

"A significant number of the shipments we handle go into exception status," said Stotlar. "This type of shipment information in the new reports can be viewed and managed by shippers right on our web site. The customer can quickly find shipment detail and have visibility to the cause of a delayed delivery," added Stotlar.

"Greater visibility to steps and procedures surrounding the shipment is what the new enhancements will provide our customers," said Jackie Barretta, director of information systems at CON-WAY. "During the remainder of 2000 we will be adding customer access to all the information we have recorded or the customer has given us," she said. "The Internet provides enormous opportunity for the access, exchange and processing of this information. And the Internet works for any size customer. All that's needed is for our customers to register, then we can provide them the data we have," said Barretta.

Con-Way Transportation Services is a $1.9 billion transportation company that provides time-definite and day-definite freight delivery and logistics services for commercial and industrial businesses. Within the CON-WAY family are regional less-than-truckload carriers Con-Way Central Express, Con-Way Southern Express, Con-Way Western Express and Con-Way Canada Express; Con-Way Truckload Services, providing multi-modal, full truckload shipping; Con-Way NOW, an expedited carrier specializing in emergency shipment service; and Con-Way Integrated Services, a contract supply chain execution service provider.

CON-WAY is a subsidiary of Palo Alto, California-based CNF, (NYSE: CNF) a $5.6 billion management company of global supply chain services with businesses in regional trucking, air freight, ocean freight, customs brokerage, global logistics management and trailer manufacturing.

Further information about Con-Way and additional press releases are available via the Internet at www.con-way.com