Customs' border sites await modernization money

DETROIT, Mich.-As uncertainty over appropriations for modernizing computer systems at the U.S. Customs Service continues, the agency's ports and land border entry sites are dealing with the consequences.

At the Fort Street Cargo Facility in Detroit, Mich., inspectors must improvise when the outdated Automated Commercial System goes offline. Fort Street processes trucks entering the country from Windsor, Canada. All manner of commerce goes through the facility, including automotive parts, produce, chemicals, raw materials-even pigs.

Whether the system goes offline as a result of scheduled maintenance or unscheduled crashes, known as "brownouts," the inspectors must revert to 1970s-era business processes to meet their mission.

This means inspectors must scrutinize every shipping manifest and invoice, looking for errors, in addition to processing paperwork for every shipment that crosses the border.

"We try to keep traffic moving," said James Mayer, a Fort Street senior customs inspector. "ACS goes down for maintenance every weekend. We're used to downtime."

When ACS comes back online, the backlog of paperwork is rounded up and inspectors sit down and enter in every transaction during overtime hours. And the inspectors aren't the only ones who suffer. When the system is down-for whatever reason-it can mean hour-long waits in the sun for cranky truckers already tired of delays.

Even though employees at Fort Street readily adapt to the unexpected, downtime and brownouts crimp their operations. Unlike many other land border sites, Fort Street operates 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The facility is rapidly nearing the point where 7,000 trucks per day will drive through its six lanes.

Fort Street is one of three Customs sites participating in the National Commercial Automated Prototype, a prototype system Customs would like to implement nationwide and a precursor to the Automated Commercial Environment (ACE), the planned replacement for ACS and Customs' overarching modernization framework.

"If we can make it work here, we can make it work anywhere," said Virginia Noordewier, deputy director of the Customs Modernization Office. Land border sites present Customs with its most significant processing problems.

When the prototype system, which significantly streamlines border entry practices, was launched, all of the big three automakers-DaimlerChrysler, Ford Motor Co. and General Motors-participated in it. However, DaimlerChrysler and Ford have both dropped out of NCAP as a result of funding shortfalls that nearly forced the project to be shut down altogether earlier this year.

"I think there is a reluctance on their part to sink more money into NCAP because they are not sure whether it will be around much longer," said Ben Anderson, chief inspector at the Fort Street Cargo Facility.

Customs has asked Congress for $210 million to begin ACE and wants millions more in life support for ACS. The House Appropriations Treasury, Postal and General Government Subcommittee has repeatedly delayed a markup that will determine the future of ACE and NCAP.