Patent pending on Cendant Mobility's shipment

Cendant Mobility, the Danburybased provider of global mobility management and work force development services, has announced that a patent is pending for its groundbreaking international freightforwarding model.

The approach allows Cendant Mobility to compare bids for nearly 1,500 city-to-city

"First, we want to protect our intellectual capital. We spent quite a bit of time creating this process. Secondly, we are looking at licensing it directly to corporate accounts," said Greg Goolkasian, senior vice president responsible for planning at Cendant Mobility.

Using an online transaction mechanism, international "freight forwarders" submit online bids to Cendant Mobility for air and surface shipments as well as permanent storage. The system collects, analyzes and stores these bids, determining the cost per individual move to ship household goods between city pairs or "shipping lanes."

Since its initial launch in January 2003, more than 100 client organizations and 1,000 transferees have benefited from the new service. In addition, 28 international moving companies have signed up to submit online bids to Cendant Mobility for air and surface shipments, and permanent storage. This service delivery model is estimated to have reduced its clients' costs by 24 percent.

Goolkasian said it costs on average between $8,000 and $9,000 to move one family from New York to London.

"The cost isn't so much tied to the distance because ocean freight is ocean freight. It's a flat rate. The real cost is involved in packing and unpacking and that's labor costs," he said.