Details of the Sept 2011 TSN Presentations (Less from CBP, ACE Release & M1) (Reissued)
U.S. Customs and Border Protection recently posted the presentations used at the September 22-23, 2011 Trade Support Network plenary meeting in Arlington, VA. The postings include presentations given by CBP, APHIS, FDA, FSIS, USCG and the TSN Trade Leadership Council (TLC). This ITT summary is being reissued as an editing error dropped the text on M1.
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(The TSN is a group of trade representatives who have been providing input into CBP’s design and development of ACE since May 2001. TSN consists of members of the trade community, including trade associations, importers, brokers, carriers, sureties, and others. See ITT's Online Archives 11100703 for summary announcing the availability of these presentations.)
Information in these presentations that appeared to be new or substantial includes the following:
TLC Working to Continue TSN with Less CBP Input
The Trade Leadership Committee (composed of ACE Trade Ambassadors and TSN trade co-chairs) is working with CBP to continue the work of the TSN, but with fewer CBP resources. The TLC will take on the administrative task of processing new TSN applicants and disseminating TSN information. The TLC will hold monthly conference calls, with quarterly calls with trade associations. TLC meetings will be followed by webinars to the TSN, and any TSN meetings will charge a fee to attendees.
The TLC also wants to focus the TSN's input by creating a TLC/trade priority list (for the overall import process); update the GIFs (trade's Great Idea Forms that seek specific ACE functionality) and eliminate those no longer relevant; have trade ambassadors fill vacated positions; and increase trade technical advisers.
ACE Cargo Release Subset in 18 Months
CBP's program manager for ACE cargo control and release states that the agency's goal is to deploy a subset of functionality within the next 18 months, with the trade providing comments and feedback on the functional requirements for ACE cargo release.
The manager notes that with involvement and participation from 11 trade partners, 90 trade requirements were identified as in scope for cargo release. In addition, 68 GIFs were received, and to date more than 19 have been fully accepted by CBP. Similar teams from CBP identified 46 operational requirements. He also noted that the PGA message set has been created and released, which will enable Cargo Release to receive inbound data for PGAs.
(The manager also said that the April 2011 draft versions of the Cargo Release Concept of Operations (CONOPS), the Cargo Release Operations Requirements Document (ORD), and the Requirements Traceability Matrix (RTM) would be finalized in April 2012.)
M1 Pilot Deployment to Begin at 3 Ports
CBP's Director of Cargo Automation Coordination stated that e-Manifest: Ocean and Rail (M1) will be deployed in parallel with existing Automated Manifest System (AMS) processing. The CBP Director stated that M1 is fully functional but will have limited users. Nine trade partners are certified to transmit and are being prepared for this transition within the next weeks.
The new M1 User Screens will be deployed to three ports, Baltimore, MD, Buffalo, NY, and Brownsville, TX, within the next few weeks. Training and deployment activities have begun. Additional port deployments will occur once the pilot ports are successful. The deployment strategy involves supported deployment to direct arrival ports first.
The M1 pilot with limited deployment is expected to complete in January 2012 with CBP full acceptance of the system. CBP will then publish a Federal Register announcing that ACE will be the only CBP approved electronic data interchange (EDI) through which rail and sea manifests may be transmitted. The notice will also announce a six-month time frame for the transition to ACE and the decommissioning of the AMS for rail and sea manifests.
(See ITT's Online Archives 11101602 for previous version of notice which was incomplete due to an editing error.)
The 10 presentations posted to date, including a high level presentation on ACE Automated Export Processing, as well as presentations on Post Summary Correction (PSC), are available here.