Customs modernization on track for completion in four years

The Customs Service expects to complete its long-awaited modernization program in four years, agency officials announced Tuesday. Customs awarded a $1.3 billion contract to build its new Automated Commercial Environment (ACE), an import processing system, to IBM Global Services in April. ACE is intended to replace the Automated Commercial System, a 1970s system that has trouble keeping up with current trade levels. Congress has appropriated $300 million to start building ACE in 2002, up from $130 million in 2001. In April, business leaders feared that funding ACE at the same 2001 level every year would extend the project for 14 years. Woody Hall, the agency's chief information officer and assistant commissioner of the Office of Information and Technology, told those at the agency's Trade Symposium 2001 on Tuesday that ACE could only be built in four years if current funding levels remain constant. "The only obstacle," he said, "is a steady stream of funding." Charlie Armstrong, executive director of the Customs Modernization Office, admitted the agency has struggled to gain support for the project over the past five years. Now, he said, ACE is "finally getting funding and we are ready to begin work." Armstrong said ACE would reflect a move away from the mainframe-based system of the past toward a heavy reliance on the Internet. ACE will also allow Customs agents to perform complex data mining and analyses on trade data for enforcement purposes. ACES will be a totally paperless system. Customs has convened a private sector advisory group, the Trade Support Network, to help inform its customers in the trade community on the modernization project, Hall said.