Information Center

  First: Historical Background:
The Saudi Arabian Department of Customs (SADC) established a department for automation in 1980 to assume the responsibility of conducting studies and implementing plans necessary to transform the manual customs procedures into automated ones, and provide training to customs employees on the modern technologies. The minister of finance and national economy issued in 1997 a decision to upgrade the level of the automation department to an information center, which includes all the facilities required for such a modern organization, in addition to fundamental automation components such as computer hardware and networking and communication devices. In an effort to keep pace with the rapid progress in the information industry, a shift has been made during the recent years to implementation of a system based on fileservers and workstations.

Organizational Structure:
The Saudi Arabian Department of Customs consists of five departments as following:

Automated Applications Development Department: responsible for conducting studies and analysis on the possibility of automating customs and administrative procedures, design programs and maintain them, and provide training to customs employees, brokers, and shipping agents to run them.

Information Service Department: responsible for creation and administration of customs data warehouses, downloading/uploading of customs data, verification of customs data integrity, and preparation of data for use by different SADC departments.

Technical Service Department: responsible for planning, execution, administration, operation, performance improvement, and security of networks, be it WAN or LAN.

Statistical Analysis Department: responsible for preparing of statistical reports and reviewing their data.

Support Service Department: responsible for coordination with concerned SADC departments, following up contracts with the executing companies, development of technical capabilities of SADCIC staff, and other administrative works.

Second: SADC Computer Network

Customs Ports Connected to the Network
After the implementation of ports preparation works, cabling, and installation of network and communication devices, (25) customs ports named below have been connected to the computer network:SADC Headquarters Raqai
Jeddah Islamic Seaport Halat Ammar
King Abdulaziz Seaport Jubail Seaport
Riyadh Dryport Yanbu Seaport
King Khalid International Airport Ras Tanurah Seaport
King Abdulaziz International Airport Jadiedah Arar
King Fahad International Airport Dhuba Seaport
King Fahad Causeway Durah
Madina Airport Twal
Haditha Jisan Seaport
Salwa Khadra
Batha Inspection Support and Audit Departments at old airport
Khafji



Network Components:
All customs ports connectivity is achieved through a Wide Area Network (WAN), which consists of fileservers and workstations linked to an infrastructure composed of fiberoptic cabling, and sophisticated communication devices running under Netware operating system.

Fault Tolerance Technology:
This capability is provided through the installation of backup fileservers and programs running automatically upon the breakdown of the main system at the port. This capability is available at all key customs ports.

Third: Automated Programs and Applications:
SADC has developed the systems in operation at SADC HQ and customs ports inside the information center using its own resources aiming at simplification and facilitation of customs procedures to the user community, and improvement of performance efficiency, speediness, and accuracy with regard to accomplishment of works and availability of information.

Customs Systems:
Customs information, import, export, re-export, customs tariff, international conventions, exemptions, revenue, cash and credit insurance, restrictions, goods, vehicles, brokers’ licenses, transit, cargo, sample analysis, waivers, data transmittal, customs port employees’ activities following up, cars and trucks traffic.

Administrative and Financial Systems
Finance and accounting, legal affairs, personnel and payroll, inventory, training, inspection support, administrative communication outgoing and incoming correspondence at SADC and customs ports, circulars and e-mail.

Fourth: Customs Data and Statistical Reports:

SDAC has created an integrated customs data warehouse containing the programs necessary for data editing and relevant devices for data storage and downloading/uploading processes.

Development and installation of programs for statistical reports on import and export and work activity, Providing SADC departments and higher management at SADC and the ministry of finance with different statistical reports useful in decision-making process, and issuing a variety of periodical and ad hoc statistics on imports, exports, exemptions, and revenue detailed according to different data types such as the country of origin, goods item, etc. in such a manner depicting geographical and commodity distribution as per quantity and value according to the harmonized commodity description and coding system.

Fifth: Human Resources Development

SADC Manpower Development Programs
SADC is responsible for training a large number of employees on technical programs related to computing, information and network systems at specialized institutes inside the Kingdom and abroad in cooperation with the institute of public administration in Riyadh and certain institutions specialized in training on automation. SADC has created several training programs for SADC employees.

Customs Brokers and Shipping Agents Training
SADC, using its own resources, has provided training free of charge to many customs brokers and shipping agents to be able to use customs automated systems in their respective fields.

Broad-Based Automated System User Community
The Information Center has provided training on the operation of the automated systems to many employees at different SADC departments and customs ports. So, it contributed to building broad-based user community including computer sections heads, typing and word processing staff, and customs department employees.

Sixth: SADC Future Technological Trends:

Oracle Database Management System (DBMS) Project:
SADC has conducted a comprehensive study on all DBMSs available in the market. According to SADC technical requirements, Oracle DBMS has been selected along with providing software licenses, installation, and employees training. SADC has engaged since mid 2000 in re-designing and redeveloping the automated systems currently in operation, and customs databases as per oracle techniques, in addition to the Widows 2000, due to the higher technological capabilities of these systems and their wide spread in many major international organizations, rather than using software available in the market.

Digital Data Network (DDN):
SADC has adopted the use of DDN. Accordingly, the data communication circuits between SADC HQ and some customs ports have been replaced from analog to digital in coordination with Saudi Telecom at eight customs ports. The data communication speed has been increased from 9600 bps to 128000 bps in an effort to develop network performance and data transfer at a higher speed to meet the work requirements. Work is underway to provide this capability at (16) customs port.

Storage Area Network (SAN):
The objective of this technology is to increase files storage capacity and provide an efficient centralized administration using appropriate operating systems. So, independent data storage management is achieved. Consequently, a part of fileserver disk space will be available and backups will be run directly during operation, without causing any interruption to work, and faults handling efficiency will be increased.

Customs procedures simplification
As per the directions of the Director General, SADC the information center has adopted, through the automated systems re-development, a number of steps aiming at simplifying customs procedures in such a manner to keep pace with the modern technologies and customs work techniques. The procedures are the following:

Approving a single customs form with (A4) paper size to be used as a declaration for all customs transactions (import, export, re-export, transit notification) instead of using an independent form for each transaction.

Using Intranet technology, which enables the user community (shipping agents, brokers, importers, exporters) to access the automated system from their offices to input and follow up customs transactions data.

Providing the capability of using credit cards to pay customs duties in addition to the existing collection in cash, bank checks, and letters of guarantee.

Adopting an automated technique for the reconciliation of data of international transit trucks crossing the Kingdom to provide the capability of reconciling the transit data at the port of entry at the time the trucks cross the exit port.

Adopting an automated technique for the international codes of reference files such as currency file, country and port name file, etc. as per the United Nations criteria.

Adding software for applying an advanced methodology for the documentation of automated programs and systems.

Acquisition of modern data extraction techniques, which help in the development of different reports generation process in such a manner to achieve speediness and high efficiency, which is ultimately deemed a strong support to decision making at various customs management levels.

Using the Arabic digits (1, 2, 3, etc.) instead of the Hindi digits (1،2،3) in the programs and statistics, because they do not look similar and the zero (0) is distinguishable.

Establish techniques for data editing and correction of errors in the data entered by the customs employees and brokers at ports prior to release and after it.

Expanding use of the Internet in the exchange of data between the user community and SADC, and in other technical areas.