ARI was awarded the first ever Strategic Growth Award from Evoqua Water Technologies as their top 2016 Indirect Supplier Partner at their second annual Strategic Supplier Summit, the fleet management company announced.

The award recognizes those business partners that work to align themselves with Evoqua's strategic growth goals and who dedicate themselves to delivering on promised results.

"This is a tremendous honor for us and we would like to thank Evoqua for this important recognition," said Denise Wildish, ARI's senior vice president for global service excellence. "Understanding a customer's needs — both at a strategic level and on a practical, day-to-day level — and developing solutions tailored to fit those needs is really a part of our DNA at ARI."

At the awards dinner, Evoqua commended ARI for setting the standard as a strategic supplier and for committing the resources and expertise needed to develop and deliver innovative solutions focused on Evoqua's strategic growth goals.

In the fall of 2015, Evoqua's Director of Indirect Materials Sourcing, Morgan Gandee, and Director of Business Excellence, Michael Martin, challenged ARI to help the organization find ways to significantly lower cost by right-sizing driving sustainability in their fleet, according to ARI.

ARI immediately engaged a team of employees from across the organization, including long-tenured strategic business analysts as well as regional truck and sales managers, to evaluate Evoqua's fleet operations. As a result of ARI's assessment, which involved site visits to multiple Evoqua locations, Evoqua implemented an accelerated replacement program across more than 25% of their fleet. The replacement program eliminated underutilized vehicles and optimized vehicle size that resulted in reduced fuel consumption while continuing to meet business needs and lessen the environmental impact from fleet operations.

At the Strategic Supplier Summit where ARI was honored, Evoqua highlighted the work done by the ARI team and emphasized that it represented the value a strategic supplier can bring when the focus goes beyond mere price and instead effort is put forth on finding innovative solutions. ARI looks forward to continuing to work with Evoqua in finding sustainable solutions that result in savings and efficiencies with regard to their fleet operations.