AI | The Contracting Education Academy

December 31, 2019 By cs

Acquisition leans into automation

Automation is gaining traction in federal acquisition.

“When we met with senior leaders a few weeks ago, they had a list of processes they wanted automated by that week,” Lesley Field, deputy administrator for federal procurement policy at the Office of Management and Budget, said at a panel discussion at the 2019 Presidential Rank Awards Leadership Summit on Dec. 17. She said the acquisition workforce is enthusiastic about developing robotics process automation tools within the government.

Soraya Correa, chief acquisition officer at the Department of Homeland Security, noted that automation technologies offer a number of advantages, including limiting problems that can stem from data bias.

“With automation, we can get to a fairer process,” he said. “Right now, we engage more data bias because we’re limited by what we can do as long as we’re telling industry what we’re willing to do and where we’re going to go look for this information.”

Keep reading this article at: https://gcn.com/articles/2019/12/24/acquisition-automation.aspx

October 30, 2019 By cs

Army’s acquisition boss on artificial intelligence and the evolving procurement process

As the U.S. Army begins to replace its existing fleet with fresh platforms that will form a force capable of countering adversaries across multiple domains and theaters, the acquisition side of the house will face tough choices.

**Army acquisitions chief Bruce Jette, center, receives a briefing on product improvements for cannon systems. (Photo credit: John Snyder, U.S. Army)**

Defense News posed a variety of questions to Bruce Jette — Army acquisition chief — ahead of the Association of the U.S. Army’s annual conference to see what he’s thinking about when it comes to the evolution of the service’s procurement approach, including its relationship with Army Futures Command, which is tasked with modernizing the service.

A year ago you were developing a framework for how you, as the assistant secretary of the Army for acquisition, logistics and technology, would interface with Army Futures Command. How has the framework evolved?

The framework for interfacing with Army Futures Command has evolved as we’ve identified unique, shared or overlapping responsibilities among stakeholders as well as sole responsibilities for each stakeholder.

The major muscle movements are: AFC has lead responsibility in the space between concepts creation and requirements definition, bringing “unity of command” to modernization organizations previously scattered across the Army. Unique to AFC is the responsibility to create concepts for how the Army will fight, and creation of the initial materiel requirement. AFC transitions to a critical supporting role after the concept and requirement refinement milestones, and is essential in collaborative efforts during acquisition activities leading to production. There are overlapping roles of capabilities to requirements throughout the development and procurement processes.

Keep reading this article at: https://www.c4isrnet.com/show-reporter/ausa/2019/10/14/us-armys-acquisition-boss-on-artificial-intelligence-and-the-evolving-procurement-process/

October 7, 2019 By cs

New OFPP administrator seeks to reduce risks of federal contracting through AI, robotics

Michael Wooten became the 15^th administrator of the Office of Federal Procurement Policy about six weeks ago. More importantly, he became the first permanent head of federal procurement during the Trump administration.

In his first two public speeches last week, Wooten hit all the expected notes that an OFPP administrator is supposed to reach — building on existing efforts like category management, upskilling the workforce, unlocking technology to create innovation and harnessing acquisition data to turn it into business intelligence.

“There is a considerable alignment that supports what we are doing. This is a good time to be the administrator. There are a lot of people who are cheerleading, saying ‘go, go go and do things for us.’ It’s a good time to cut regulations that get in our way and I’m happy about that,” Wooten said at the Tech Trends conference sponsored by the Professional Services Council in Washington, D.C. “This is a good time to skill up the workforce. I have a mindset that we need to help the workforce shift to the right or use those human judgement skills as opposed to the rote stuff that software can do.”

Keep reading this article at: https://federalnewsnetwork.com/reporters-notebook-jason-miller/2019/09/new-ofpp-administrator-seeks-to-reduce-risks-of-federal-contracting-through-ai-robotics/

September 30, 2019 By cs

GSA, DoD turn to each other for help to improve AI capabilities

Call it a partnership of convenience. The Defense Department’s Joint Artificial Intelligence Center (JAIC) needed help in growing its technology capabilities. The General Services Administration wants to set up an AI Center of Excellence.

The two agencies announced on Sept. 25th they are partnering under the Centers of Excellence initiative to meet both goals. DoD’s JAIC becomes the fifth agency to take part in the Trump administration’s CoE program.

Lt. Gen. Jack Shanahan, director of the JAIC, said on Wednesday at the 2019 George T. Kalaris Intelligence Conference on Artificial Intelligence and National Security that GSA has been forward leaning in reaching out to offer the JAIC assistance.

“On the contracting and acquisition side of it, they have been incredibly helpful. In addition to trying to hire the right people, our other big challenge is contracting and acquisition and moving at the speed of agile methodology. That is a big part of it,” he said.

Keep reading this article at: https://federalnewsnetwork.com/it-modernization/2019/09/gsa-dod-turn-to-each-other-for-help-to-improve-ai-capabilities/

September 10, 2019 By cs

Patience you must have: No timeline for massive cloud contract, says DoD chief

Secretary of Defense Mark Esper said he has no “firm timeline in mind” for completing a review of the Pentagon’s controversial enterprise cloud procurement and hinted that other factors may delay the program.

Speaking to reporters Sept. 5, Esper said the Department of Defense Office of Inspector General’s review of the Pentagon’s handling of the procurement, potentially worth $10 billion over 10 years, also hinders the future of the program.

“I saw where another DoD IG is doing another review. So in some ways, the timeline isn’t completely mine,” Esper told reporters Sept. 5.

Legislators, including Republican Sens. Marco Rubio of Florida and Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, have written letters to Esper asking for the award to be delayed until after the inspector general had completed its review. In early August, after pressure from Congress and reported criticism of the program by President Donald Trump, Esper announced he was going to review the contract. At the time, Pentagon spokesperson Elissa Smith said “no decision will be made on the program until he has completed his examination.”

However, Esper emphasized that the Pentagon needed cloud technology to develop better artificial intelligence capabilities, but did not specifically say that JEDI was the solution.

Keep reading this article at: https://www.federaltimes.com/it-networks/cloud/2019/09/06/patience-you-must-have-no-timeline-for-massive-cloud-contract-says-dod-chief

Automation is gaining traction in federal acquisition.

As the U.S. Army begins to replace its existing fleet with fresh platforms that will form a force capable of countering adversaries across multiple domains and theaters, the acquisition side of the house will face tough choices.

Michael Wooten became the 15th administrator of the Office of Federal Procurement Policy about six weeks ago. More importantly, he became the first permanent head of federal procurement during the Trump administration.

Call it a partnership of convenience. The Defense Department’s Joint Artificial Intelligence Center (JAIC) needed help in growing its technology capabilities. The General Services Administration wants to set up an AI Center of Excellence.

Secretary of Defense Mark Esper said he has no “firm timeline in mind” for completing a review of the Pentagon’s controversial enterprise cloud procurement and hinted that other factors may delay the program.

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Michael Wooten became the 15^th administrator of the Office of Federal Procurement Policy about six weeks ago. More importantly, he became the first permanent head of federal procurement during the Trump administration.