The US General Services Administration has awarded a $17.4m contract to Unisys to design, develop and maintain the Military Surface Deployment and Distribution Command’s (SDDC) global freight management (GFM) system for the army.

Under the contract the company will provide project management and integration services, e-commerce solutions, systems training, and software testing and documentation.

The GFM system automates the SDDC’s responsibilities such as carrier selection, costing, shipment documentation and management of Department of Defense freight movements.

The military services using the system’s freight acquisition shipping tool enter the details of their shipping requirements such as the shipping origin and destination, the nature of the cargo and the timeframe required.