Michigan US Customs Service Commissioner Robert C. Bonner launched the Customs-Trade Partnership Against Terrorism, or C-TPAT, which is the joint initiative between government and business designed to protect the security of cargo entering the United States while improving the flow of trade. (4/22/2002)

Part of presentation provided to the press and visitors during the C-TPAT initiative launch was a series of live border crossings of trucks from Canada to the USA. General Motors (GM), one seven companies in the pilot version of the C-TPAT program, was the only Importer to equip their trucks and utilize transponder technology to be waved through the border crossing in a matter of seconds, exemplifying the initiative and demonstrating it’s true objectives.

GM, the global automaker, is one of 60 companies that have joined the C-TPAT program, and more than 100 additional applications are pending. For GM, whose manufacturing plants rely on approximately 600 trucks carrying auto parts entering the USA each day from Canada, the effort gives new meaning to the adage that time is money. GM has long been a trade member of the U.S. Customs Automated Commercial Environment (ACE) and actively participates in automation prototypes. Currently GM is the only Importer successfully transmitting data to U.S. Customs per the ACE National Customs Automation Program (NCAP) by means of their software systems developed by TradePoint Systems LLC. TradePoint Systems is the only IT provider with the NCAP software commercially available.

“The NCAP software developed by TradePoint has allowed General Motor’s carriers to improve their productivity by providing manifest data in advance to US Customs” said Gilbert S. Duhn Jr., Customs Administrator for General Motors. “Pre-approval by US Customs of the shippers, carriers, importer, broker, consignees and tariff classification of the goods gives Customs advanced information for their enforcement responsibilities. We can clear up to seventy shipments on one truck using a bar code containing the Trip number or with the transponder in less than 30 seconds. We are currently clearing approximately 3700 shipments each week using this process in Detroit and Port Huron. The carriers for these types of loads would typically spend 2-4 hours at the border having their paperwork processed. With NCAP there is no paper, only the electronic transaction data and the pre-approved account data.

Our carriers are better able to utilize their equipment and drivers by reducing the border wait time by several hours. Customs is able to process the shipments much faster with a higher level of confidence on these NCAP loads. This allows Customs to spend their time saved looking at the more risky shipments. We were also able to take the release message from Customs, which includes the ship from DUNS and SID (Shipment ID number), to import our Advance Shipment Notice (ASN) from the shipper, append purchase order price, tariff classifications, weight, country of origin, and NAFTA eligibility to populate the Customs Entry. The entire process has been automated using the TradePoinsolution.”

TradePoint’s NCAP software offers “Manifest Processing” through which the carrier can enter manifest, crew, conveyance and shipment data with the aid of defaults and a manifest copy function. Completed data is passed via EDI to Customs, which then returns accept/reject notification. Upon receipt of Release Notice, the software will automatically calculate duties, fees and taxes, perform data-validations and then automatically send an EDI entry summary to Customs. The software also includes the required file maintenances, Summary Lookup screens with drill-down capabilities, Completed NCAP Shipment report, Management Statistics reports, on-line review of US Customs messages and on-line Problem Reporting, each with a printing option.

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Author:Newsdesk, eyefortransport.com