The Importation Management system was implemented by Tecnova for the Agricultural and Livestock Service (SAG), an agency of the State of Chile in charge of supporting the development of agriculture, forests and livestock, through the protection and improvement of the health of animals and vegetables. Mainly, the registration, monitoring, control and management of information associated with imports of forestry and livestock products to Chile were automated at the national level. Previously, the process that was carried out manually through paper forms, which is why a great advance was achieved with this project.

At a general level, the system contemplates the registration of imports of silvo-agricultural merchandise (phytosanitary risk category), pesticides, fertilizers or alcoholic beverages and of livestock imports according to the type of merchandise: food and products, fertile animals and eggs, or medicines of animal use.

In addition, the traceability of products entering the country is carried out through the system, managing quarantines, inspections and rejections.

With the implementation of the system, it has been possible to considerably reduce the times of the import process to the country. In addition, it was possible to have reliable and consolidated information for the timely taking of preventive and corrective decisions in the management of the process.

What were the main improvements?

• The number of daily requests received doubled by having an on-line system available 24 × 7.
• The number of requests handled daily increased by approximately 60%, from 250 to 400 on a daily average. The above, thanks to the digitization and automation of the documentary inspection and generation of minutes.
• It facilitated the fulfillment of delivering a CDA (Customs Destination Certificate) pronouncement and physical inspection in 72 hours, even many times in the same day.

Institutionally, this system is integrated with other SAG systems, such as: Fee Collection and Payment System, Document Management System (Zero Paper) and Medications. On the other hand, for the signing of documents, it is integrated with an advanced digital electronic signature.

With which state agencies is it integrated?

• National Customs Service
• General Treasury of the Republic
• Integrated Foreign Trade System (SICEX)

Technical Detail of the Project

For development, Microsoft .NET was used with C # and ASP .NET languages, plus Microsoft SQL / Server Database. Additionally, for the integration the Microsoft Biztalk service bus.

Finally, we highlight that the project took 32 months of implementation, from the specification phase, carried out in several stages. During this period, partial deliveries and start-ups were made to facilitate the transition process to this new platform. Throughout the project, the Cascada Incremental development methodology was used, with processes based on CMMi.

Tecnova participated in the project with a multidisciplinary team of professionals from project managers, architects, functional analysts, developers, designers and QA analysts.