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Container Security: Who's In Charge?

Guest columnist Jim Giermanski takes issue - actually seven specific issues - with DHS comments on the role of technology in container security.

By James Giermanski

May 06, 2008 —

On April 2, 2008, Deputy Commissioner, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), Jayson P. Ahern gave a statement at the Hearing before the Committee on Appropriations, Subcommittee on Homeland Security, U.S. House of Representatives. Although unremarkable in many ways, his conclusions regarding the Role of Technology as it applies to container security were extremely disturbing, and if these conclusions are representative of CBP, they give one the feeling that nobody in management at the Department of Homeland Security and especially at CPB knows what they are doing or talking about. If I'm right, we're in big trouble.

Statement 1
In what looks like an attempt to excuse CBP from indecision, Ahern said:

"It is important to note that there is no single technology solution to improving supply chain security."

Response
Of course there may not be a single technology. There's no single car, boat, aircraft, knife, or piece of cheese, but each do the job they are designed to do. Equally, for container security, there are many technologies that can provide solutions to improving supply chain security. For instance, satellite, RFID, Zigbee, and two cans and a long string are technologies. All but the two cans and a long string are used today in supply chain security around the world. Each has positive and negative qualities, but each serves in its way to improve supply chain security, just as different cars or knives do their job to accomplish their purpose. His statement seems to say that unless there is only a single technology, CBP cannot make a decision on technology and container security. How easy it would be never to have options!

Statement 2
"Priority should be given to effective security solutions that complement and improve the business process already in place, and which build a foundation for 21st century global trade."

Response
Where has Ahern's staff been, or what have they been reading, or do they read? We have research, opinion, and government statements already demonstrating what Ahern says it should do in complementing and improving business processes. Maybe I should start with the market itself. How can there be a market without systems and users?

Here's the market: Homeland Security Research Corp. says the container security market in 2009 will be more than $2 billion, rising to more than $4 billion by 2012.

Here's some research demonstrating the container security can improve and complement the global trade:
"Product safety 38% reduction in theft/loss/pilferage, 37% reduction in tampering;
"Inventory management 14% reduction in excess inventory, 12% increase in reported on-time delivery;
" Supply chain visibility 50% increase in access to supply chain data, 30% increase in timeliness of shipping information;
"Product handling 43% increase in automated handling of goods; and
"Process improvements 30% percent reduction in process deviations.
Here is some opinion on what cost saving there would be in facilitating the container's movement through Customs at our seaports:
"Estimates range from $600 to $700 per container per move (Bearing Point Study, 2003); and
"$1150 per move (AT Kearney Report, 2005).
And here is an official U.S. government statement regarding the savings gained from container security usage: 0.8 of one percent of value of contents of container (Congressional Budget Office, March 2006). So why doesn't CBP know this? Or does it, and is there another agenda?