Computerworld Honors Program

The Computerworld Honors Program

Honoring those who use Information Technology to benefit society

LOCATION:
Springfield, VA, United States

YEAR:
2008

STATUS:
Laureate

CATEGORY:
Government

NOMINATING COMPANY:
IBM

ORGANIZATION:

Department of Homeland Security, Customs and Border Protection

PROJECT NAME:

Customs Modernization

Introductory Overview

The Automated Commercial Environment (ACE) is the commercial trade processing system being developed by U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP). In 2001, the U.S. Customs Service (now part of CBP) embarked on ACE as the centerpiece of a multi-year modernization effort to re-engineer agency business processes and the information technology that supports them. The initial plan was to focus first on ACE and trade processing and then on other elements of CBP Modernization. The terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, changed this focus. ACE is now being developed to support the dual CBP mission of preventing terrorism and other threats through border security while, at the same time, fostering our Nation’s economic security by facilitating the movement of legitimate trade and travel across U.S. borders. CBP is developing ACE with significant input on system requirements from a stakeholder community comprised of other Federal agencies, the trade and transportation community, and in collaboration with top companies in the information technology (IT) industry.

ACE supports two critical objectives – 1) to identify potential terrorists and terrorist shipments; and 2) to facilitate the more efficient movement of legitimate cargo. These two objectives form the bedrock of a modernization effort that will benefit users of the system (including public employees and the commercial trade), other government agencies involved in the processing of cargo into the United States and, ultimately, the American consumer. ACE provides CBP personnel enhanced automated tools and information to decide – before a shipment reaches U.S. borders – what cargo to target and investigate because it poses a potential risk, and what cargo should be expedited because it complies with U.S. laws.

ACE will improve people’s lives through its many features and benefits, including:
• Advance electronic information on cargo, crew, and conveyance to help protect U.S. citizens, infrastructure, and the overall supply chain.
• Enhanced identification of high-risk shipments that may pose a threat to the United States and its citizens.
• Improved, more timely inter-agency information sharing, analysis, and investigation, further improving the integrity of the supply chain.
• More efficient workflow and reduction of costly labor and paper intensive activities.
• Automation enabling CBP officers to process cargo faster and focus on other border security tasks.

Within the context of the cargo importation process, ACE will directly benefit and enhance each step of that process. The cargo importation process can be depicted in terms of pre-arrival (the submission of data describing the shipment), arrival at the port of entry (shipment released or inspected) and post-release (collection of fees and duties payable). ACE’s advance manifest and cargo data processing capabilities means importers can electronically file well in advance of a shipment’s arrival at a port of entry. CBP and other government agencies will then process and analyze this information to determine the admissibility of the cargo. Enforcement and compliance selectivity criteria will screen every import processed in ACE.

ACE facilitates the more efficient processing of cargo entering the United States by integrating several specialized data processing systems into a single application. CBP personnel will have one consolidated release system providing instant access to all necessary data to safeguard the public.

Finally, ACE includes post-release capability that serves to automate all types of cargo entry finalization, including payment of import fees and taxes. ACE will also help the agency better enforce its anti-dumping, trade compliance, import quota and intellectual property rights (IPR) mission objectives, thus protecting American commerce.

The Importance of Technology

How did the technology you used contribute to this project and why was it important?
ACE will replace a data processing system that is over 20 years old with over 6 million lines of COBOL code. The system being replaced has become increasingly inadequate in meeting the growth and demands of the expanding international trade environment. Currently, CBP trade functions operate in an increasingly paperless work environment. We receive data electronically on 98% of all commercial importations. Because of our reliance on automation and paperless processing, system outages can cause profound consequences to CBP operations as inspectors, import specialists and entry specialists are forced to revert to an antiquated paper-based processing system.
The ACE Modernization Program continues to leverage robust technologies and global best practices to provide the capacity and flexibility to address critical trade and security requirements. Throughout this Program, CBP has built and implemented innovative releases with sophisticated technology designed to achieve the twin goals of securing our borders while facilitating trade.

The ACE Program began in 2001, when CBP partnered with the private sector to help develop ACE as the centerpiece of a multi-year modernization effort. This next generation CBP technology is being built with significant input from the trade and transportation community, and in collaboration with a diverse team of leading IT and consulting partners, which include IBM Global Business Services (prime), BearingPoint, Computer Services Corporation (CSC), Lockheed Martin, and Sandler Travis Trade Advisory Services.

Key program requirements included support for complex workflows, massive data retention, management and retrieval flows, dynamic requirements and periodic enhancements mandated by legislation and regulations and compressed development cycles. All of these dynamics need to be accommodated while maintaining mission-critical operations with continuous operational availability under the most rigid data security standards.

The technologies employed to meet these requirements include UNIX servers, modern development environments based on open standards, middleware and data management (ETL extract transform load) tools, and RDBMS. Core architectural components include a consolidated data model, services bus, a secure data portal and data warehouse, and modular architecture and services-oriented design. Operating platforms were highly scalable, providing high availability and effective recovery capabilities. Integration among multiple systems has been simplified by leveraging COTS (commercial-off-the-shelf) products, and user interfaces have been consolidated and standardized.

Combined, these tools have led to robust, scalable and adaptable solutions and improved overall systems availability, a more modernized infrastructure, and reduced operations and maintenance costs.

Since the initial launch of ACE capabilities to select CBP personnel in 2002, the program has implemented eight major functional releases, deploying new capabilities to reduce processing time and improve access to information for CBP personnel, the trade community, and other participating government agencies. The technology also enables increased data sharing and integrated on-line access.

To date, over $14 billion in duties and fees has been collected through the ACE monthly statement process since the first payment in July 2004. The ACE solution for truck release at U.S. land borders has been deployed to all 99 U.S. land border ports. Ultimately, ACE will provide a multi-modal manifest (land, air, rail, and sea) capability -- allowing importers, exporters, and transportation providers to use a single system, ACE, to move goods across U.S. borders.
From an operational standpoint, CBP automation is exceedingly important to the agency’s ability to meet its current and future obligations. Automation is at the heart and soul of our commercial operations and is the key to our relationship with the trade community. CBP has diligently worked, with the trade and others, to develop a solid strategic approach and plan for constructing ACE to be a fully modernized automation system that will solve the trade and enforcement needs of the present and the future.

Benefits

Has your project helped those it was designed to help? Yes

Has your project fundamentally changed how tasks are performed? Yes

What new advantage or opportunity does your project provide to people?
One of the most important benefits of ACE is the inter-government agency collaboration and cooperation that is taking place under the International Trade Data System (ITDS). ITDS electronically links Federal agencies with import regulatory responsibility to ACE. Currently, there are 42 participating government agencies with access to the ACE Secure Data Portal who are able to view critical import information in a timely manner.

Import personnel from the Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) use ACE to target suspicious consignments to help identify potential ineligible or smuggled shipments and shipments that are not presented for import re-inspection prior to entering the commerce of the U.S. Using ACE data, FSIS can determine if shipments have entered from ineligible countries or establishments, ports of entry of noncompliant shipments, and importer of record or consignee information for noncompliant shipments. In short, the data made available in ACE helps FSIS and other agencies like them carry out their halth and safety protection missions.

ACE portal access is a bridge to a permanent electronic interface between CBP and participating agencies. ACE facilitates import commerce by reducing the paperwork burden associated with FSIS regulated imported products. This allows FSIS inspectors to spend more time inspecting and clearing shipments in lieu of data entry.

Another government agency that is also benefiting from ACE is the Consumer Products Safety Commission (CPSC) whose mission is to prevent the entry of unsafe or hazardous products into our country and to remove those that do find a way into the country. CSPC no longer has to rely solely on dated paperwork. Through access to the ACE portal, CPSC agents have expedited access to data, specifically electronic manifests which allows them to conduct more targeted, timely intercepts of potentially dangerous products. In September, CPSC collaborated with CBP to stop a potentially dangerous shipment of ATVs from being imported and reaching consumers. Collaborations like this are now happening on a regular basis thanks to expedited access to electronic records. ACE exposes CPSC to potential problems sooner and gives the agency more time and information to respond before the dangerous product reaches U.S. shores.

Importers and brokers are also seeing the benefits of being an ACE account with access to over 100 ACE reports which allows them to monitor their compliance with all import regulations and identify areas for improvement. Importers participating in periodic monthly statement, a feature of ACE, can consolidate individual entry summaries for goods that are either entered or released during the previous month and pay the duties and fees as late as the 15th working day of the following month. Truck carriers benefit from ACE by being able to file e-manifests through the ACE portal in addition to being able to run 22 reports which allows them to monitor their business activity.

The benefits of ACE will continue to grow as CBP rolls out additional functionality this year. The number of Federal agencies with access to ACE is growing as well as the number of ACE portal accounts.

If possible, include an example of how the project has benefited a specific individual, enterprise or organization. Please include personal quotes from individuals who have directly benefited from your work.
Trade and government entities are experiencing direct benefits from ACE, as evidenced by feedback collected over time. Select representative quotes appear below:

• "This system makes it more secure to transfer goods. We can track what is in the shipment, where it is now, and where it is going. Drivers, no longer waiting a day for their shipment to arrive, can get on the road, and businesses are thrilled not to have to pay for their accommodations during layovers anymore. Fast delivery leads to fresher produce, which is the major import from the southern border, and quick arrival to markets leads to better business and buyer gratification." – Jose Santana, President, J.D. Transport
• “I use the reports feature extensively. It is extremely valuable to us. I am able to view the value for each of the Importer of Record numbers and the number of imports. The individual importers can see the number of compliance reviews by CBP and the compliance rate, including the reason for discrepancies, even down to the port level.” Don Huber, Customs Manager, GE
• “If the cash flow advantage alone in not enough to entice importers to take advantage of the ACE Secure Data Portal, access to payment information and reporting tools is a signification bonus for importers who have no on-line access to import data stored within the Automated Commercial System (ACS).” Ronal Schoof, Global Trade Compliance Manager, Caterpillar Inc.
• “Drivers are saving on average three to four hours per day, per driver, which increases their overall earnings.” Bart Smith, President, Olmstead Transportation
• “The e-Manifest process offers faster, more predictable processing of shipments. We’ve been processing e-Manifests with 100 percent success. The drivers really like the system and the time it saves them.” Jevon Jamieson, ABF Freight System Inc.
• “We’ve benefited from ACE Periodic Payment, which streamlines the flow of goods by eliminating the need to pay duties and taxes on a transaction-by-transaction basis.” Eric Dalby, Global Trade Services Specialist, Kellwood Global NY

In addition, a federal government agency has reported that seizures of potentially dangerous agricultural products have increased 44-fold as a result of access to international trade data found in ACE.

Using access to ACE, this agency, responsible for ensuring the safety of imported food products, intercepted 1.6 million pounds of ineligible products in fiscal year (FY) 2006 – up from 36,000 pounds in FY 2005. The exponential increase in seizures of ineligible products is continuing: during the first 6 months of FY 2007, 1.5 million pounds of ineligible agricultural products has been removed from the US commerce.

ACE is being designed and built to offer a “single window” to the government for the trade community and facilitate the exchange of information between government agencies that regulate legitimate trade. By obtaining shipment information electronically through ACE rather than paper-based shipment documentation, agencies can act faster to detect, detain, and remove from commerce potentially dangerous agricultural products that do not comply with U.S. standards for health, quality and labeling.

“ACE facilitates data sharing between government agencies, enabling us to secure America’s borders and enhance the safety and security of all Americans by ensuring that legitimate safe products cross our borders and end up on our dinner tables,” said Louis Samenfink, executive director of the Cargo Systems Program Office.

Participating Government Agencies (PGAs) are integrated with ACE to enhance information sharing and define agency requirements for the ACE capabilities being developed. Currently, there are 42 PGAs actively engaged in ACE. CBP is working aggressively to ensure maximize agency participation.

Originality

Is it the first, the only, the best or the most effective application of its kind? Most effective

What are the exceptional aspects of your project?
CBP is responsible for safeguarding 7,000 miles of land border the U.S. shares with Canada and Mexico, as well as 2,000 miles of coastal waters surrounding the Florida peninsula and off the coast of Southern California. To secure this vast terrain, more than 11,000 CBP Border Patrol agents and 18,000 CBP officers stand guard along America’s front line. These men and women prevent terrorists and their weapons from entering the United States while continuing their mission of seizing contraband and apprehending criminals and others who illegally attempt to enter the United States.

National security threats and the global trade environment have increased demands on CBP personnel and resources. In response, the ACE Program is designed to provide the right information to the right people at the right time and place to protect citizens, sustain the vitality of our economy, and maximize efficiencies gained through technology solutions. It is one of the largest information technology projects taking place in the U.S. government today, and is successfully aligned with Congressional, GAO, and OMB supported mandates to accelerate government transformation for improved homeland security.

ACE modernization is an enterprise-wide initiative that includes sweeping process and technology improvements across CBP. It touches nearly every CBP employee, as well as the trade community, participating government agencies and the traveling public. The ACE Program also brings this enterprise-wide approach to planning, defining, developing, and implementing new business processes, designed to increase national security through accurate, available data and promote seamless trade processing, quota enforcement and collection of duties, taxes and fees. It has dramatically streamlined CBP processing of imports and exports with automated administrative and formerly paper-based functions.

This successful program has resulted in improved mission effectiveness, security, sustainability, and productivity, moving goods to market faster with positive impacts on U.S., Mexican, and Canadian economies, benefiting consumers and business alike.

In addition, significant screening, targeting and border security capabilities have been implemented through the ACE Program. ACE delivers innovative and emergent screening and targeting tools to identify high-risk cargo and passengers based on advance information and strategic intelligence, allowing CBP and other DHS and law enforcement officials to pre- screen and evaluate entities early on, generally at the port of departure. With this platform, CBP has the ability to initiate activities, foster collaboration among security analysts, and access past activity logs for additional intelligence. ACE has the potential to be integrated with, if not form the core of, DHS information systems and border security technology, bringing together critical security, public health, public safety, and environmental protection information through a common platform, enabling agencies to efficiently obtain trade and enforcement data across government.

Difficulty

What were the most important obstacles that had to be overcome in order for your work to be successful? Technical problems? Resources? Expertise? Organizational problems?
While the traditional project obstacles will always influence the environment in which ACE operates (technical problems, resources, expertise, etc.), the most influential challenges for the ACE project are related to national security priority and system requirements management. Originally envisioned as a trade processing system, ACE design and development shifted to a more balanced blend of trade processing and a tool to pre-screen, target and identify potential security risks to our Nation. To meet the challenge of growing security threats, made clear by the events of September 11, 2001, the ACE project became a tool to promote information sharing and to transform data into knowledge. For example, a new Screening and Targeting (S&T) capability is now a vital part of ACE to help achieve CBP’s security mission objectives. ACE now enables CBP to inspect 100% of all “at-risk” cargo bound for the U.S., as well as select the highest risk shipments for detailed examinations and further enforcement after thorough research and analysis.
Systems requirements management is a particularly daunting challenge for ACE for a variety of reasons. The cargo importation life-cycle necessarily involves many commercial and government entities, all of which are vital parts of the cargo importation life-cycle. Coordinating requirements collection and synthesis for these disparate entities requires knowledge of their business processes through a partnership built over time. Our team members are well-versed in the full range of business processes across the cargo importation life cycle. Further, we are better able to design and building ACE to suit the broad range of system users through a variety of outreach forums that individually focus on each stakeholder groups. As a result, we have been able to foster a partnership with ACE’s many stakeholders and better ensure ACE satisfies system user needs while achieving mission objectives. The dynamic nature of the legislative and regulatory environment presents a system design challenge because ACE must support all applicable regulations and rulings related to trade. ACE enables the trade policies and programs enacted through regulatory and legislative language, which is in a constant state of change. Through coordination with international partners and other U.S. government agencies, ACE supports the enforcement of intellectual property rights, quota targets, the identification of risks to detect and prevent the importation of contaminated agricultural or food products and the enforcement of free trade agreements.

Coordination of these many business rules and requirements is further complicated by legislation related to government project acquisition. For example, the Clinger-Cohen Act (CCA) of 1996 imposes stringent acquisition rules and requirements for federal IT system procurement. In response, ACE has developed a Cost-Benefit Analysis (CBAs) that financially justifies each ACE release and the program as a whole. The ACE project will validate costs and benefits once ACE capabilities are implemented. Through actual performance measurements and post-implementation reviews to determine the effectiveness of the system, we will demonstrate our stated performance and financial objectives.

ACE is also being developed to support CBP’s enterprise architecture which follows the Office of Management and Budget’s (OMB) A-130 guidance for compliance with the Clinger-Cohen Act. Compliance with enterprise architecture standards translates to the development and implementation of a far-reaching governance structure for system development, performance measurement and life-cycle support. ACE staff resources include personnel dedicated to enterprise architecture compliance and business performance management. ACE will be a key component of the CBP Enterprise Architecture, capturing and integrating information describing important business and technical aspects of the enterprise and providing the basis for strategic and operational plans and budgets. This ensures that technology we acquire and/or develop, such as ACE, is of widespread benefit to CBP.

Often the most innovative projects encounter the greatest resistance when they are originally proposed. If you had to fight for approval or funding, please provide a summary of the objections you faced and how you overcame them.
A project as important to national security and trade facilitation as ACE brings with it a high degree of oversight attention from governing and audit organizations. Inquiries are frequently fielded from organizations within the executive and legislative branches of government, including the Department of Homeland Security and the Government Accountability Office (GAO). Using resources that could otherwise be used to design and develop the product of the project, the ACE project office has dedicated personnel responsible for preparing responses to the various status reports, budgetary accounting and performance measurement inquiries received. The importance of responding to such inquiries with dedicated staff resources demonstrates our commitment to responsible public sector IT project management. Each year the GAO conducts a review of the planned budget for the coming fiscal year. In April 2006, GAO conducted an analysis of the fiscal year FY07 budget plan and made recommendations to improve the model and method ACE uses to collect, analyze and report performance measures. In short, GAO recommended we take action to develop performance measures that were better aligned with CBP’s mission/business goals, objectives and strategies. The project office chartered a team to 1) develop a framework to measure business performance; 2) propose measurement indicators that would best demonstrate the desired business results as reflected in the CBP Strategic Plan; and 3) implement procedures to collect, analyze and report system and survey-generated business performance measures. As a result of these and other governance-related findings, the project office continues to respond with process, policy and personnel changes.

Success

Has your project achieved or exceeded its goals? Exceeded

Is it fully operational? No

How do you see your project's innovation benefiting other applications, organizations, or global communities?
ACE positively impacts many organizations and communities, including government agencies involved in cargo import processing, commercial entities, and U.S. citizens. ACE has the capacity to fulfill the broader mission needs of U.S. Government agencies with border enforcement and regulatory responsibilities. ACE will enable agencies to more precisely target for inspection or investigation the highest risk people and cargo crossing our Nation’s borders. Based on electronic data made available in advance of the actual cargo’s arrival at a port of entry, ACE will provide a greatly improved risk management capability and significantly enhance our ability to target suspect shipments. In short, ACE will enable CBP and other border enforcement agencies to identify and take action on those shipments and people that pose security and safety risks while speeding all others – the low risks – even more smoothly through America’s ports of entry.

The technology inherent in ACE will allow government to work cooperatively and form alliances with industry. The paperless “e-filing” of data consolidates and streamlines trade activities and enables more uninterrupted business operations. Specifically, ACE will provide a single interface for the trade community to submit accurate, real-time data regarding shipments thus streamlining their operations. Perhaps the most fundamental features of ACE, upon which functionality and future capabilities are based, is its secure Web-based portal access and user account function. Similar to commonly used Internet websites, the ACE portal provide a single “window” or screen, for CBP and trade community users to access data, tools and account information quickly and easily. In other words, any entity with standard telecommunications capability can take full advantage of ACE’s benefits and features. ACE’s account-based approach helps users see summarized data related to all their trade transactions and eliminates the need to run transaction-centric queries. Finally, ACE’s periodic payment feature allows importers and their designated brokers to make periodic monthly payments of duties and fees. This will move financial transaction processing from a transaction-by-transaction process to one consolidated statement. Periodic payment reduces labor costs associated with multiple payments and provides additional flexibility in the management of a company’s working capital.

The partnership with industry is so important that CBP established a Trade Support Network (TSN) in 1994 to provide a forum for discussing ACE system design.

Finally, the benefit to U.S. consumers is the most meaningful mark of ACE’s success. ACE directly supports and enables the core initiatives of the World Customs Organization’s (WCO) global supply chain strategy, intended to ensure increasingly secure supply chains. They are: 1) requiring advance electronic information on all cargo shipments coming to the United States, moving by land air, and sea; 2) analyzing that information; 3) host nation partners to inspect containers identified as high risk before they are loaded on ships and bound for the U.S.; and 4) partner with the private sector to better secure the global supply chain, in exchange for faster processing of goods at U.S. ports of arrival.

ACE has led to hundreds of additional seizures of goods, trade enforcement gains in intellectual property rights (IPR) enforcement, and counterfeit goods identification and disposal. For example, in fiscal year 2006, the total value of IPR seizures increased by 67 percent (from $93.2 million in FY 2005 to $155.3 million in FY 2006). The volume of IPR seizures also rose dramatically, from around 8,000 to almost 15,000, in Fiscal Year 2006. Noteworthy was the seizure of over 300,000 counterfeit electrical extension cords for violation of the Underwriter’s Laboratories (UL) trademark. These cords presented potential safety hazards to consumers and the seizure was the largest for violation of the UL trademark in CBP history.

How quickly has your targeted audience of users embraced your innovation? Or, how rapidly do you predict they will?
As stated above, the system which ACE replaces, now over 20 years old, has become increasingly inadequate in meeting the growth and demands of the expanding international trade environment. As a result, ACE’s user communities, particularly the trade, have embraced ACE as a necessary modernization initiative. We believe it is the business outcomes successes that have led to user acceptance and enrollment in this project.

Specifically, ACE has demonstrated an average 38% percent decrease in the time to perform truck cargo processing, as measured at select ports of entry nationwide. Less time spent at the primary processing booth translates to more efficient operations for industry (transporters, importers and buyers) and more time for CBP personnel to conduct mission-critical work instead of administrative work. Our projected transportation company participation rate has been exceeded for the last two years and has already exceeded our 2008 targets

The number of ACE trade accounts continues to increase due to satisfaction with the features and benefits associated with having an ACE account, as discussed above. As of February 29, 2008, the number of ACE trade accounts is approximately 15,000, which represents a four-fold increase in participation since the end of fiscal year 2006 (October 2007).
ACE’s periodic payment feature is a favorite feature among system users and accounts for almost half of all duties, taxes and fees collected by CBP. Large and small companies alike have taken advantage of this voluntary feature of ACE, attesting to its appeal as a way to bring additional flexibility to the management of a company’s working capital.

Digital/Visual Materials

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