In 180 days, to develop technology for NOAA Fisheries (Fisheries) Web site to allow commercial fishermen to buy and renew permits, report landings, and access related information via the Web. Fisheries monitors the fishing, catch, and landing of Atlantic tuna, billfish, swordfish, and shark. It also issues annual permits to oversee fisheries. Until now, permit applications went through multi-channel contact centers, resulting in a long, labor-intensive process. Fisheries sought to integrate its contact centers with an online service to automate the permit application and renewal process and allow electronic information reporting.

Aquilent built an online Permit Shop that enables members of the recreational and commercial fishing communities to perform the following online activities:

• Acquire and renew permits
• Report landings
• Access a library of related information

The Permit Shop also provides a wealth of information to Fisheries through real-time reports accessible via password-protected Web sites. Users may access the Permit Shop via the Internet or toll-free Interactive Voice Response (IVR) and call center.

The Permit Shop issues over 30,000 permits per year. The system reduced issuance and renewal times from 30 days to mere minutes. Other benefits include:

• Reduced time to acquire a permit
• Reduced billing errors
• Fewer customer complaints to legislators

In addition, Aquilent offered Fisheries the combination of technologies needed to provide for scalability and extensibility while meeting specific operational and cost containment goals.