Solution | Risk Assessment Methodology

The Need

As established in Section 222 of the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act, the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) ensures that imports entering the country are compliant with CPSC laws and regulations.  CPSC’s regulatory framework grants scores to importers based on their import history.  Importers with good product histories are given a “green low risk light” to import a product; conversely, importers with poor histories are given a “red high risk light,” enabling CPSC to identify hazardous or risky shipments more quickly, and preventing them from entering the country.  CPSC also needed to improve interactions and collaboration with US Customs and Border Protection, specifically in the areas of data sharing and enforcement.

The Solution

NTELX developed RAM using its risk and score-based targeting capability, as well as a combination of proprietary and open source technology, to provide users real time data for rapid analysis. The innovative technology blend used to design RAM enabled the solution to integrate CPSC’s focus areas of import compliance, domestic compliance, and safe manufacture through coordinated business processes, information technology, and resource alignment.

The primary focus of RAM is to incorporate coordinated risk-based decision-making into core CPSC activities while ensuring that personnel working on those activities have the most current information and advanced capabilities to carry out CPSC’s mission.

RAM helps CPSC determine whether products are in violation of CPSC-enforced laws and standards, or if products present a risk or hazard.  RAM is also leveraged as a first line of defense, screening imports pre-arrival, and enabling CPSC to take preventative action, while providing users real time data for product exams and analyses.

Moreover, RAM provides users information to develop cases against firms in violation of mandatory standards and applicable laws.  The solution provides targeting system data and analysis results, enabling users to better manage targeting rules.