Slashdot Mirror
Ships Turned Away As Aussie Customs' IT System Melts Down
An anonymous reader writes "Urgent shipments of medicine and goods for the holiday season have been turned away by customs officials due to a massive computer problem. The initial budget for the system upgrade was said to be A$80 million but has since blown out to A$250 million. Customs officials and the government have been forced to admit that they might actually have to revert to the old system if things don't improve. One cargo user said on national TV that he used to process 300 orders daily but the new system is so complex and unusable, he's happy if he can manage 100 orders per day. The system failure is expected to have a massive impact especially on the retail sector this Christmas."
Simple solution. Push it back 6 months till when it's actually cold!
Grump.
Is it true that more people vote for the winner of American Idol, than vote for the president? -Ali G.
I hope my shipment of inflatable Love Dolls makes it through customs, otherwise it's going to be a lonely new year.
All the news and radio reports I've read and heard (including TFA) have made no mention of ships being actually turned away at this stage. So far they're just saying that the storage space at the ports is rapidly filling up, so if the processing rate doesn't improve soon they will have to look at turning ships away. But as far as I can tell, they're planning to roll back to the old system before that becomes necessary...
For the AU government to let goods travel freely until they fix or bring up the old system. There really is no excuse for what is going on. Yes, that means that the AU government doesn't get its cut of taxes but them's the breaks. The money lost from import fees would be DWARFED compared to the lossess incurred by *not* letting goods through the ports.
--
BMO
http://www.customs.gov.au/site/page.cfm?c=6361
Partial quote...
"Customs is doing everything possible to resolve technical and business issues arising from the introduction of the new Integrated Cargo System (ICS) for imports.
"Contrary to some media reports, the new IT system for imports has not failed, nor is its performance solely responsible for the problems that have occurred.
"The problems experienced in part, flow from inaccurate and incomplete information being submitted by some users, which the new system is designed not to accept for security reasons," the spokesman said.
I just can't stand it when they don't post whether it's a windows-based or a unix/linux-based implementation. I need to know whether I can indulge in schadenfreude or whether I have to make excuses.
What OS do they run?
Why does this matter? It's much more likely that the problems are down to poorly specified, poorly designed or poorly implemented software, which is by no means an exclusive preserve of Windows...
Too many large scale software projects fail because of poor development methodologies and a failure to interact with users during development and when this happens, it's hardly surprising that the users don't like working with the new system.
I was actually part of a company a couple of years ago which put through a proposal to assist with tracking firearms imported into Australia. We were shocked at what we found when we consulted several customs offices.
There was no integrated network system between interstate customs offices.
Sure, they e-mailed each other and did some odd bits of communication, but there was nothing solid in place. Part of our proposal was to put in a system where if a shipment of firearms was sent from Melbourne to Sydney the Sydney office would actually know that one was going to arrive. A step up from their existing system at the time, where the firearms actually left Melbourne, turned up at the Sydney customs depot without prior knowledge and then processed!
Task Mangler
What OS do they run?
What software do they use?
CA, NCR and IBM are the service providers; Novell's providing the directory service.
The ICS (Integrated Cargo System) application is running on an IBM OS390 mainframe; the OS is ZOS, the database is DB2. The web interface is Java, using WebSphere.
The CCF (Customs Connect Facility) runs on Sun Solaris Unix platforms (using a variety of other servers for validation and transformation). Again, the database is DB2 and the interface uses WebSphere Java.
More information here.
The real problem with this system is that it used the principle of "Big Design Up Front". Ask Joel Spolsky about the benefits of "Big Design Up Front" - you get to make all kinds of assumptions about the environment to simplify development, then find when you turn on the switch that this $80M system just doesn't work right.
The little things that get you down? Oh... date formats, validating input, units for measurement, using a communications system intended for overnight batch operations to support real-time interactive operations.
As other posters have mentioned, the bid that got the nod was the lowest one. The bid that should have received the goahead was the one that recommended incremental changes. The one that recommended introducing a new means for handling import declarations - and not cutting over, but rather letting the old one die the natural death of user migration.
The final nail in the coffin was Customs insisting that more detail be included in these reports - no longer can you submit 300 reports in a day saying that what you're importing is "1 Box of parts", you actually have to specify what the parts are and how many are in the box - I suspect this is what is causing the problem as the system rejects "invalid" submissions and forces the importers to rework and resubmit their import declarations.
Dear Project Director,
...I think it's time you opened the third envelope. Good luck in your future endeavors.
Your situation reminds me of the old IT parable that goes something like this...
On his first day on the job a new IT Director has a meeting with the outgoing one. At the end of the meeting the ougoing IT Director hands the new on 3 envelopes and tells him to use them to get out of his first 3 major meltdowns, "just make sure you wait to open them until you need them."
About 3 months later the new IT Director has his first major disaster and remembers the envelopes. Opening the first one he sees, "Blame Me" in big bold letters. Which he does and it works.
Six months after that the second blow up happens and the second letter reads, "Blame the Vendors" which also works.
One year later when everything falls apart the new IT Director opens the third letter full of hope. It reads, "Write 3 Letters."
Sincerely,
The Guy Before You
"Never limit what you know to what you do", Me
It's true that the main problem isn't the software (although the bugs don't help): it's the way the new system was implemented
Dude, don't feel so bad. I'm an American!
Yeah, that's right. Mod me funny - throw away your points...
Because it's not science.
Creationism should certainly be discussed - but in a religion or philosophy class, where it belongs, not in a science class.