GAO: U.S. CUSTOMS STRUGGLES WITH ACE ESTIMATES

GAO: U.S. CUSTOMS STRUGGLES WITH ACE ESTIMATES    A recent U.S. General Accounting Office report found that Customs continues to struggle with estimating costs to develop its future umbrella computer system, the Automated Commercial Environment.
   GAO has pointed out this problem since it began monitoring the development of ACE in 1999. The $1.4-billion system is expected to take four to five years to build.
   In May, Customs submitted its third ACE expenditure plan to Congress requesting the release of $190.2 million from its fiscal 2002 appropriations.
   The Senate Subcommittee on Treasury and Government and the House Subcommittee on Treasury, Postal Service and General Government to ordered GAO to:
   * Determine whether the third ACE expenditure satisfies legislative conditions.
   * Determine whether Customs’ plan is consistent with GAO’s recommendations.
   * Provide views about the plan and Customs’ management of ACE.
   GAO briefed the Senate and House subcommittees of its findings on June 28.
   GAO reported that Customs’ overall ACE expenditure plan “satisfies the legislative conditions specified in the appropriations act.” But the agency said Customs still must “develop and implement a rigorous and analytically verifiable cost estimating program that embodies the tenets of effective estimating as defined in the institutional and project-specific estimating guidance of the Software Engineering Institute.”
   Customs told the GAO it plans to have the ACE cost estimate recommendations in place by December. “We continue to pursue efforts to improve our cost estimates supporting expenditure plans,” said Christine E. Gaugler, acting director of Customs’ Office of Planning, in a July 31 letter responding to the GAO report.
   “Further, Customs is proceeding with acquiring the services of an independent contractor to develop and maintain a Modernization Life Cycle Cost Model, which will then support all planning activities,” Gaugler said. “This model will also be based on the SEI estimating guidance.”