eBusiness, eGovernment, eXports: Implementing the Customs Cargo Management Reengineering System

Mr Murray Harrison, CIO of Australian Customs Service

2:15 pm to 3:00 pm

Murray Harrison is a professional public servant, a thirty-year veteran of management roles in the Department of Veterans’ Affairs (DVA) and the Department of Social Security (DSS). Joining DVA in 1971, he has managed a number of successful projects in benefits, compensation and income support. He moved into a CIO role in 1997 when DVA moved to increase the business focus of its ICT operations. Murray was appointed to an ICT executive role as CIO of the Australian Customs Service in 2002. This appointment was founded on his successful management roles in the Senior Executive Service, rather than the traditional trek through information technology.

As one of the biggest e-government projects in Australia, the Cargo Management Re-engineering (CMR) program, with the Integrated Cargo System (ICS) at its core, went live for Exports Processing on 6 October 2004 after two years' intensive development. The Imports implementation is being undertaken during the first half of 2005. The program replaces existing reporting and processing procedures with one integrated IT system; replacing multiple separate IT applications operating across non-integrated platforms, infrastructures and architectures.

Essentially, the re-engineering project creates a secure Web-based "single face of government" for players in the import/export supply chain to cope with annual trade processing volumes of 3 million import entries, 1.2 million export clearances, 4 million containers and 100,000 flight movements, and the collection of nearly $6 billion in duties. A new Internet-based communications facility (corporate gateway) known as the Customs Connect Facility (CCF), which enhances Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) and existing disparate connection facilities, has also been implemented to enable timely processing of import and export paperwork. A key feature of the system is its improved security. Users and transactions will be protected by public key infrastructure (PKI) that involves the use of digital certificates, providing confidentiality, authentication, non-repudiation and message integrity over open networks such as the Internet.

Murray Harrison's Presentation (Powerpoint format 3MB)

See: Australian Customs Service Website

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Last Updated: 9 November 2004