OREANDA-NEWS. FedEx Corp. has been named a recipient of the 2015 CIO 100 Award from IDG's CIO magazine. The 28th annual award program recognizes organizations around the world that exemplify the highest level of operational and strategic excellence in information technology (IT).

"For 28 years now, the CIO 100 awards have honored the innovative use of technology to deliver genuine business value," said Maryfran Johnson, editor-in-chief of CIO magazine & Events. "Our 2015 winners are an outstanding example of the transformative power of IT to drive everything from revenue growth to competitive advantage."

FedEx earned this recognition for its development of Workbench, an IT solution which has revolutionized the aircraft maintenance process. Workbench MRO (Maintenance, Repair and Overhaul) is a suite of mission-critical applications that automates FedEx Air Operations (Air Ops) business processes used to manage aircraft maintenance, engineering and material management functions.

"Just as we are modernizing our aircraft fleet, we are implementing systems like Workbench to modernize the vital maintenance processes that keep our air operation safe and reliable," explains David J. Bronczek, president and chief executive officer of FedEx Express.  "Workbench will help our outstanding maintenance team make the best possible decisions each day. As the application is even further enhanced with the input of our team members, I look forward to even greater contributions to safety, efficiency and fleet reliability."

The Workbench suite allows the retirement of several legacy Air Ops applications by providing a framework through which critical information and systems are integrated and delivered to Air Ops personnel. Further, it has allowed FedEx to retire more than four million lines of legacy software code by providing a framework for delivering information and systems critical to FedEx Air Ops. In short, Workbench provides significant cost savings in hardware and software maintenance and increases productivity and reliability of the FedEx fleet.

"The foundation of FedEx Tech Ops is now state-of-the-art technology that provides real-time information when and where it's needed," adds Eric Keane, senior vice president of IT. "The Workbench IT development team was incredibly collaborative with the end users: working alongside aircraft mechanics, picking parts with warehouse clerks and doing desk rides with engineers in order to help them truly understand the issues these operations employees have to solve every day."

Executives from the winning companies will be recognized at The CIO 100 Symposium & Awards Ceremony, to be held Tuesday evening, August 11th, at The Broadmoor in Colorado Springs.