22 December 2020
Purpose
This Industry Advice Notice (IAN) is to remind industry and Authorised Officers (AOs) that the use of the Plant Exports Management System (PEMS) will be mandatory from 1 February 2021.
Summary of changes and key points
- From 1 February 2021, PEMS will become the only approved way we accept plant and plant product inspection and calibration records and supporting documents, unless an exception applies.
- The exceptions are listed below and will be enforced through an Instrument of Approval and are limited to situations where
- exceptional circumstances arise that affect a PEMS user’s ability to complete and submit a record through PEMS
- a system outage, either planned or unplanned, renders PEMS unusable for a period of time
- the type of record the AO must complete is not available in PEMS
- we have approved, in writing, an individual exception with the client and/or AO that allows records to be made in an approved way other than PEMS, and evidence of this is held by us.
- Non-compliance with the mandate will result in the authorisation request being rejected due to information being provided to us in a non-approved form.
Background
PEMS is an IT system that is used to capture and store information relating to the export of plants and plant products from Australia; including plant product export inspection, calibration results and transport units.
In May 2019, PEMS was made available to all plant export external AOs, exporters, EDI users and registered establishment executives, across Australia.
We advised all AOs, except those clients of third-party software vendors, to use PEMS for all plant and plant product inspections from May 2020.
We have been working closely with several third-party software vendors to progress the system integration component of PEMS. We responded to feedback from industry to delay the mandate date for clients of these providers from May 2020 until 1 February 2021.
Further information about PEMS is available on the Plant Export Management System webpage. Refer to IAN 2020-72, 2020-60, 2020-19, 2019-39, 2019-32 and 2019-20 for further background.
AO responsibilities
AOs who are already using PEMS directly must continue to do so.
AOs that currently use an alternate system to create inspection records should consult with their vendor to determine the readiness of that system to exchange data with PEMS. You must be registered with PEMS to allow this data exchange to occur. If the vendor will not be ready to exchange data once the mandate is implemented, then PEMS must be used until this can be achieved.
Video tutorials are available and can be accessed through your LearnHub account. These short, step-by-step instructional videos show AOs how to use PEMS to complete inspection and calibration records and can be viewed as often as required. Watching the video tutorials is not mandatory, but we recommended all AOs view the tutorials prior to using PEMS to develop the skills and knowledge to use the system correctly.
Third party vendor responsibilities
Third-party software vendors that are integrating with PEMS must ensure the work is completed prior to the mandate. Vendors that are unable to complete the integration, for all the relevant web services, prior to the mandate should instruct their clients to use PEMS from 1 February 2021; until such time as the integration work is complete.
Exporter responsibilities
Exporters that currently provide supporting documents to us for plant and plant product inspections and/or calibrations, must register as a PEMS user as soon as possible and start using it to provide these supporting documents.
Information about how to register and the benefits of PEMS is detailed in IAN 2020-72.
Exporters who currently use third-party software to record Empty Container, Containerised Goods or Quality Systems Recognition inspections will need to consult with their vendor to determine the readiness of that system to exchange data with PEMS. If the vendor will not be ready to exchange data once the mandate is implemented, then PEMS must be used until this can be achieved.
Exporters who currently use an Export Data Interface (EDI user) agent to provide documents to us can continue to do so as they will need to provide your documents in an approved format.
EDI agent responsibilities
If you currently provide documentation for plant and plant product inspections on behalf of exporters you must use PEMS to provide all supporting documents to us.
Information about how to register and the benefits of PEMS is detailed in IAN 2020-72.
Contact information
If you have any questions regarding this IAN please email PEMS Administrator.
For more information about PEMS system integration, please contact the PEMS Technical Support team.
David Ironside
Assistant Secretary
Plant Export Operations Branch