Boeing and Avio-Diepen recently signed a long-term agreement as part of Boeing's Integrated Materials Management (IMM) initiative. Through this program, Boeing and selected suppliers such as Avio-Diepen maintain an airline's inventory of maintenance supplies, including spare parts, and provide items only as needed. By reducing the airline's own inventory, IMM reduces an airline's cost of doing business, I-Newswire reported.

"Boeing is excited to add Avio-Diepen to the Integrated Materials Management family of customers and network suppliers. Avio-Diepen has
extensive knowledge and experience in providing innovative distribution and material management solutions to their customers. The IMM service
network and airline customers will greatly benefit from this new agreement as we further expand the scope of IMM," said Joe Brummitt, director of Integrated Materials Management for Boeing.

Avio-Diepen, founded in 1946, is one of the leading distributors in commercial aerospace. The company provides worldwide inventory-management solutions, including customized integrated supply programs, kit packaging and related inventory management services. In addition Avio-Diepen distributes a complete line of aerospace parts and components for Airframe, Engines and APUs and serves more than 1,900 original equipment manufacturers, airlines and MRO customers worldwide.

"We are very proud to be selected as a partner for Boeing's IMM program," said Herman Kooyman, executive vice president of Avio-Diepen. " The staff in our worldwide facilities have a very strong customer focus and we believe this program will bring our customers costs savings and guaranteed availability."

IMM builds on existing materials management programs that Boeing has with several airlines, including airtran, All Nippon Airways, Delta,
KLM, Japan Airlines, Japan Transocean Air and Singapore Airlines. This program is the next advance in expanding Boeing's supply chain services to provide value to both airline customers and supplier partners.