Biosecurity Summit: Collaboration at the border
How can those involved in keeping New Zealand's borders safe from biological invaders better collaborate?
A half-day session at the Biosecurity Summit, held in Auckland on 24 and 25 October, heard from MAF Biosecurity New Zealand's Director of Policy and Risk, Douglas Birnie, that biosecurity management could be argued as coming down to taking responsibility and building trust.
"Is it really a case where we should be treating others as we want them to treat us? It's all about accepting responsibility, because if you accept your part in the food chain, trust will improve. Relationships will then improve and compliance costs may even come down."
While not dwelling on areas where stakeholders could improve trust, Douglas questioned whether some responses to diseases were becoming industries in themselves.
"Are we beginning to over-react to some and under-react to others?"
He gave the example of BSE, pointing out that far more people die from salmonella than from BSE.
Supply chain efficiency call
The concept of the supply chain in working together at the border was the Summit topic for former Ports of Auckland Chief Executive, Geoff Vazey, now a consultant to the company.
"Most people don't realise 10–50 percent of every tangible product's cost is a supply chain cost. There is huge room for improvement in taking costs out of the supply chain," he said.
"Products don't compete. Supply chains do. Businesses compete on their ability to get products to market rather than on product differentiation.
"There are lots of risks to the supply chain and biosecurity is one of them. The cost of a biosecurity breach can be colossal.
"Most people working at the border are not government people, they're business employees. Most of the assets at the border are not government assets, they're business assets. We'll only get supply chain efficiencies by cooperation between all working at the border.
"For instance, the processing of information is an essential part of the supply chain. MAF's systems are sub-optimal.
"If MAF needs to charge more to go to a digital communications system, business won't object because faster electronic systems are win-win. Nobody I've spoken to in business disagrees."
Geoff told the Summit that Ports of Auckland's IT people have developed a paperless system called e-imports. It cut paper use by 7 tonnes a year – about 2 million pieces of paper. Ports of Auckland also introduced an electronic system to answer telephone inquiries.
All of that, said Geoff Vazey, ultimately helps to reduce the cost of biosecurity to the supply chain.
Streamlining passenger processing
The Summit got a peek into the future for airline passengers as they cross the border – and the implication of new airport self-help systems for biosecurity.
Air New Zealand Manager for Infrastructure Strategy, Eric Morgan, told guests that airlines are picking up on the ATM, cell-phone and on-line services now common in banking. For instance, in Japan, boarding passes are being replaced by the use of a bar-code on a passenger's cell-phone.
He says only e-tickets will be sold by the end of 2008.
"Off-airport processing will have cell-phones as a key element. Boarding passes will be issued on-line. There'll be kiosks for bag-tagging and a bag-drop area which will replace traditional full-service counters," he said.
"Also, staff will be more mobile, with personal digital assistants (PDAs) instead of being stuck behind counters."
New systems will mean fewer errors and can give customs and border agencies more information, which helps stop problems before they arrive at the border.
And to help with biosecurity enforcement, cases will be x-rayed on boarding. The images are then transmitted to the aircraft's destination airport while the plane is still in the air, giving MAF Quarantine Officers an early warning of any risk goods that might be lurking in passengers' luggage before they even touch down.
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Page last updated: 30 April 2008