Authorised Economic Operator (AEO)

The importance of supply chain security become one of the significant topics that researchers are working on recently to make safer international logistic chains and so to decrease the risk of tampering or alternation of goods in transit. The events of September 2001 and terrorist attacks in London and Madrid moved the focus of Customs Administration away from the traditional mission of collecting customs taxes and toward the mounting security risks. Supply chain actors in Europe that are interested in avoiding and minimizing the effects of security events also participate in voluntary certification programs, company certifications, or authority certifications granted by governments throughout the world. With this in mind, the European Union devised the concept of AEO to reduce the impact of the new standards. The Authorized Economic Operator (AEO) program requires participating parties to follow specific requirements in order to get supply chain benefits such as simplified customs rules and fewer customs interference. This implies that businesses must demonstrate that their supply chain is secure and monitored in accordance with AEO requirements (Holland International Distribution Council, 2012). In exchange, if there is a mutual recognition agreement, they will be able to deal more easily with enterprises in other customs territories. AEOC, AEOS and AEOF are different types of AEO certificate that Companies have the option of obtaining one of two AEO statuses. Due to the type of AEO certificate submitted for and obtained, they might include either easier access to some customs simplifications or certain facilitations from customs security and safety requirements. In this thesis I explained in details what AEO certification is and what are the advantages and disadvantages that companies will get after acquiring this certificate. Then by providing a suitable questionnaire I gained some useful information from a sufficient statistical sample of the certified companies in Italy. At the end by investigating this sampling and also advantages and disadvantages that each type of AEO certificate will give to different companies we suggest some improvement by means of automation depends on the type of AEO certificate that each company need.