NATIONAL SEMICONDUCTOR TAPS UPS LOGISTICS

NATIONAL SEMICONDUCTOR TAPS UPS LOGISTICS    UPS Logistics Group said on Thursday that it has been awarded a $150-million, five-year contract to manage the global supply chain of National Semiconductor Corp. (NSC).
   Both companies said they have opened a new global distribution center in Singapore for NCS’s operations in Asia.
   A UPS spokesperson told the Shippers' NewsWire that NCS’s business had been one of FedEx Corp.'s largest logistics accounts in Asia.
   A FedEx spokesman told Shippers' NewsWire that NSC and FedEx “mutually agreed to part ways.”
   FedEx worked with NSC for seven years in Asia, lowering average transit times for the semiconductor giant from 14 days to two days, the spokesman said. FedEx still counts Sony, Cisco Systems and Philips Semiconductors among its Asia-based logistics accounts.
   UPS Logistics will handle the movement of NSC’s computer chips from manufacturing plants in Malaysia and Singapore to the new center in Singapore, and from there to customers around the world.
   “The strong analog and information appliance market has created a booming demand for our chips,” said Kamal Aggarwal, executive vice president of NSC’s Central Technology Manufacturing Group. “We expect to ship four billion products this year, up from two billion in 1999.”
   Carrier-neutral transportation options, Web-based information, and closed-loop security are among the services the UPS Logistics is providing for NSC, which is based in Santa Clara, Calif.
   UPS Logistics Group, based in Atlanta, is a subsidiary of United Parcel Service Inc.