The Booz Allen Hamilton review of Customs' Integrated Cargo System (ICS) has been released.
When the ICS Imports module was implemented on 12 October 2005 it resulted in severe short-term consequences for the movement of Australia's sea cargo. In the first days after implementation, a large proportion of containers were held by Customs on the docks, resulting in delays in imports in the lead-up to Christmas.
The review concludes that the causes of the problems were:
- Inadequate end-to-end testing of the system – testing with live data wouldhave highlighted many of the issues that manifested when the system went live;
- Quality problems with third-party software – many users experienced problems that were not ICS-related but rather were problems in the software they use to communicate with Customs. Customs has no means of checking their readiness.
- A lack of staged implementation – the “big bang” implementation provided no realistic fall-back when problems existed and no way of ensuring that the total end-to-end importation supply chain process worked correctly before widespread implementation;
- Inadequate training in the new system – many organisations were not able to train in the combined new environment of their third-party software and the ICS. This meant that these organisations were not sufficiently prepared and had not adapted their own internal processes to the requirements of the new system.
Customs has accepted the review's recommendations for operational changes.
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