Contingencies ... Do we need them?
The obvious answer you would think is "yes", but in reality do we see it?
Over the last couple of weeks we have experienced major problems in the landside activities at our ports.
DP World had issues at Fisherman Island as a part of their transition to their new automated terminal. In their defence, it could be argued that it was difficult to plan for a fibre cable being damaged as a part of the whole exercise. The net result was extensive delays in truck turnaround times which had downstream impacts on transport operators meeting schedules, dehiring containers and risking detention charges. Credit must be given to DP World senior management for their responsiveness to the problems and communication with industry to minimise the negative impacts.
The Melbourne truck blockade and scheduled MUA stop work meetings have been effectively managed. There was no "ambush" and to the credit of all stakeholders, plenty of notice and alternate plans were put in place. It would been interesting to see how all would have responded if these were not scheduled.
The most common problem experienced is IT failures, whether they are systems supplied by commerce or government for statutory reporting purposes. IT has introduced significant efficiencies by removing manual processes. Whist this is a positive, it also poses a risk in that it is very difficult (if at all possible) to revert back to manual processes in times of technical difficulties. This issue is not unique to our industry, just ask customers how well the airlines cope when their ticketing systems fail.
One of the IT systems central to the Australian international trade sector is the Customs & Border Protection Integrated Cargo System (ICS). Whilst the ICS has been relatively stable over the last few years, there have been ongoing problems since the migration to a new electronic messaging gateway (Customs Connect Facility) during September 2012. This has caused significant issues to the airfreight sector due to the time sensitive nature of export and import consignments.
Fortunately, each technical failure has been relatively short in duration meaning that the impact has not been too severe on the sea freight sector. But what would happen should we experience a significant delay in ICS availability? We saw the impact of the problems in 2005 when the ICS was first introduced bringing our airports and ports to a standstill.
Customs & Border Protection (in partnership with the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry) have developed a comprehensive Business Continuity Plan (BCP) to deal with scenarios of ICS and / or industry systems outages. While this is commendable, how many people in industry know the official processes?
Customs & Border Protection offer frequent BCP trials yet these generally receive minimal uptake. Let's keep our fingers crossed that the systems stay operational as I do not believe that we are prepared to deal with the alternative.
If you are interested to know more about BCP, it is recommended that you refer to material on the Customs web site or refer to the "Feature Article" at www.FTAlliance.com.au
HAVE YOUR SAY
Paul Zalai - FTA