The mission of the Customs Service is to ensure that all goods and persons entering and exiting the United States do so in compliance with all U.S. laws and regulations. It does this by (1) enforcing the laws governing the flow of goods and persons across the borders of the United States and (2) assessing and collecting duties, taxes, and fees on imported merchandise. During fiscal year 1997, Customs collected $22.1 billion in revenue at more than 300 ports of entry, and it processed nearly 450 million passengers who entered the United States during the year. To accomplish its mission, Customs is organized into six business areas—trade compliance, outbound, passenger, finance, human resources, and investigations. Each business area is described below. The trade compliance business area includes enforcement of laws and regulations associated with the importation of goods into the United States. To enforce compliance with the trade laws and regulations, Customs (1) works with the trade community to promote understanding of applicable laws and regulations, (2) selectively examines cargo to ensure that only eligible goods enter the country, (3) reviews documentation associated with cargo entries to ensure that it is properly valued and classified, (4) collects billions of dollars annually in duties, taxes, and fees associated with imported cargo, (5) assesses fines and penalties for noncompliance with trade laws and regulation, and (6) manages the collection of these moneys to ensure that all trade-related debts due to Customs are paid and properly accounted for. The outbound business area includes Customs operations related to the enforcement of laws and regulations associated with the movement of merchandise and conveyances from the United States. To enforce compliance with these laws and regulations, Customs (1) selectively inspects cargo at U.S. ports to guard against the exportation of illegal goods, such as protected technologies, stolen vehicles, and illegal currency, (2) collects, disseminates, and uses intelligence to identify high-risk cargo and passengers, (3) seizes and accounts for illegal cargo, (4) assesses and collects fines and penalties associated with the exportation of illegal cargo, and (5) physically examines baggage and cargo at airport facilities for explosive and nuclear materials. In addition, the outbound business includes collecting and disseminating trade data within the federal government. Accurate trade data are crucial to establishing accurate trade statistics on which to base trade policy decisions and negotiate trade agreements with other countries. By the year 2000, Customs estimates that exports will be valued at $1.2 trillion, as compared to $696 million in 1994. The passenger business area includes processing all passengers and crew of arriving and departing (1) air and sea conveyances and (2) noncommercial land vehicles and pedestrians. In fiscal year 1997, Customs processed nearly 450 million travelers, and by the year 2000, expects almost 500 million passengers to arrive in the United States annually. Many of Customs’ passenger activities focus on illegal immigration and drug smuggling and are coordinated with other federal agencies, such as the Immigration and Naturalization Service and the Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service. Activities include targeting high-risk passengers, which requires timely and accurate information, and physically inspecting selected passengers, baggage, and vehicles to determine compliance with laws and regulations. The finance business area includes asset and revenue management activities. Asset management consists of activities to formulate Customs’ budget; properly allocate and distribute funds; and acquire, manage, and account for personnel, goods, and services. Revenue management encompasses all Customs activities to identify and establish amounts owed Customs, collect these amounts, and accurately report the status of revenue from all sources. Sources of revenue include duties, fees, taxes, other user fees, and forfeited currency and property. The revenue management activities interrelate closely with the revenue collection activities in the trade compliance, outbound, and passenger business areas. The human resources business area is responsible for filling positions, providing employee benefits and services, training employees, facilitating workforce effectiveness, and processing personnel actions for Customs’ 18,000 employees and managers. The investigations business area includes activities to detect and eliminate narcotics and money laundering operations. Customs works with other agencies and foreign governments to reduce drug-related activity by interdicting (seizing and destroying) narcotics, investigating organizations involved in drug smuggling, and deterring smuggling efforts through various other methods. Customs also develops and provides information to the trade and carrier communities to assist them in their efforts to prevent smuggling organizations from using cargo containers and commercial conveyances to introduce narcotics into the United States. To carry out its responsibilities, Customs relies on information systems and processes to assist its staff in (1) documenting, inspecting, and accounting for the movement and disposition of imported goods and (2) collecting and accounting for the related revenues. Customs’ Office of Information and Technology (OIT) fiscal year 1998 budget is about $147 million for information management and technology activities. Customs expects its reliance on information systems to increase as a result of its burgeoning workload. For 1995 through 2001, Customs estimates that the annual volume of import trade between the United States and other countries will increase from $761 billion to $1.1 trillion. This will result in Customs processing an estimated increase of 7.5 million commercial entries— from 13.1 million to 20.6 million annually—during the same period. Recent trade agreements, such as the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), have also increased the number and complexity of trade provisions that Customs must enforce. Customs recognizes that its ability to process the growing volume of imports while improving compliance with trade laws depends heavily on successfully modernizing its trade compliance process and its supporting automated systems. To speed the processing of imports and improve compliance with trade laws, the Congress enacted legislation that eliminated certain legislatively mandated paper requirements and required Customs to establish the National Customs Automation Program (NCAP). The legislation also specified certain functions that NCAP must provide, including giving members of the trade community the capability to electronically file import entries at remote locations and enabling Customs to electronically process “drawback” claims. In response to the legislation, Customs began in 1994 to reorganize the agency, streamline operations, and modernize the information systems that support operations. As computer-based systems have become larger and more complex over the last decade, the importance of and reliance on information systems architectures have grown steadily. These comprehensive “construction plans” systematically detail the full breadth and depth of an organization’s mission-based “modus operandi” in (1) logical terms, such as defining business functions and providing high-level descriptions of information systems and their interrelationships, and (2) technical terms, such as specifying hardware, software, data, communications, security, and performance characteristics. Without an architecture to guide and constrain a modernization program, there is no systematic way to preclude either inconsistent system design and development decisions or the resulting suboptimal performance and added cost associated with incompatible systems. The Congress and the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) have recognized the importance of agency information systems architectures. The 1996 Clinger-Cohen Act, for example, requires Chief Information Officers (CIO) to develop, maintain, and facilitate integrated system architectures. In addition, OMB has issued guidance that among other things, requires agency’s information systems investments to be consistent with federal, agency, and bureau architectures. OMB has also issued guidance on the development and implementation of agency information technology architectures. Treasury has also issued to its bureaus, including Customs, guidance on developing an information systems architecture. This guidance, known as Treasury Information Systems Architecture Framework (TISAF), is also included in OMB’s guidance. According to Treasury, TISAF is intended to help reduce the cost, complexity, and risk associated with information technology development and operations. In July 1997, Treasury issued additional guidance to complement TISAF. This guidance, which was finalized in September 1997, provides “how to” processes for developing an information systems architecture in accordance with TISAF. Customs has several efforts underway to develop and acquire new information systems and evolve (i.e., maintain) existing ones to support its six business areas. Customs’ fiscal year 1998 budget for information management and technology activities is about $147 million. Customs’ major information technology effort is its Automated Commercial Environment (ACE) system. In 1994, Customs began to develop ACE to replace its existing automated import system, the Automated Commercial System. ACE is intended to provide an integrated, automated information system for collecting, disseminating, and analyzing import-related data and ensuring the proper collection and allocation of revenues, totaling about $19 billion annually. According to Customs, ACE is planned to automate critical functions that the Congress specified when it established NCAP. Customs reported that it spent $47.8 million on ACE as of the end of fiscal year 1997. In November 1997, Customs estimated it would cost $1.05 billion to develop, operate, and maintain ACE over the 15 years from fiscal years 1994 through 2008. Customs plans to deploy ACE to all 342 ports that handle commercial cargo imports. Customs plans to develop and deploy ACE in multiple phases. According to Customs, the first phase, known as NCAP, is to be an ACE prototype. Customs currently plans to deploy NCAP in four releases. The first is scheduled to be deployed for field evaluation at three locations beginning in May 1998, and the fourth is scheduled for October 1999. Customs, however, has not adhered to previous NCAP deployment schedules. Specifically, implementation of the NCAP prototype slipped from January 1997 to August 1997 and then again to a series of four releases beginning in October 1997, with the fourth release starting in June 1998. Customs also has several other efforts underway to modify or enhance existing information systems that support its six business areas.