Forest Service incident procurement bots take flight [VIDEO]

WASHINGTON, D.C. – On-going Robotics Process Automation efforts, implemented by the WO Business Operations, Procurement and Property Services, Incident Procurement Modernization Team, reached a new milestone last week. In the latest of IPM RPA successes, the Aviation Bot completed its first task order obligation in the Integrated Acquisition System, resulting in the first ever IAS automated transaction for an aviation contract.

The Aviation Bot receives the aviation invoice package/summary from the Incident Business System, tabulates the dollar amounts and job code subtotals, then records/approves the transaction in IAS. This automated process, which has nominal impact to the field as changes are behind the scenes, facilitates accurate, timely reporting and compliance with procurement and financial requirements. Moving forward, the Aviation Bot will be utilized to manage obligations for: 1) Call when needed water scoopers, 2) Next Gen 3 air tankers, and 3) the NIFC jet.

The IPM team (Ben McGrane, Stephanie Archuleta, Mariah Morris-Titus, Aaron Kretzer, Jan Drum) work in partnership and collaboration with contracting officers, Fire and Aviation Management, Budget & Finance, and CIO staff capitalizing on technology and implementing process changes to modernize incident procurement. The incident procurement RPA achievements are recognized as innovative and progressive by USDA and are receiving attention and interest from other agencies as well. The good work continues as next up is the Invoice Processing Platform Bot to process the payment piece of the spending chain, which is slated for production soon.

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