Tom Temin: And it’s a humorous time. There’s going to be a change in administration after which there’s the normal congressional delay of standard appropriations. So I wished to discuss what, except for all that, your priorities are for operations and procurement in the coming 12 months.
Paul Courtney: Nice query, Tom. On the funds entrance, we all know will doubtless be underneath persevering with decision for half, if not half the 12 months. So yearly has grow to be the regular to get that appropriation later in the fiscal 12 months. It does current a problem to the present workforce right here to division. And Tom, as you most likely know, we’ve got about 1500 contracting officers, contract specialists in the division. So our aim in our workplace actually is to assist them navigate after we get these appropriations late, be certain the prospects get the paperwork and necessities they want to the contracting officers, work with business to be certain we’ve got issues lined up via our acquisition plan and forecast system, make it possible for’s all up to date as we start every fiscal 12 months. This 12 months isn’t any completely different. Now we have a number of priorities working on this 12 months inside the division on the procurement entrance. One is to make it possible for we proceed to present the newest instruments that our procurement officers want. We’re huge on the AI aspect of issues right here, making an attempt to proceed to transfer that ahead. And if I may, Tom, discuss a few the initiatives that we’re working on. One on the AI entrance.
Tom Temin: Positive.
Paul Courtney: I all the time take into account DHS to be a frontrunner in the procurement area. On this case, OMB reached out to us and NASA to cochair their newly-formed Chief AI Officer, AI Procurement Working Group. So us and NASA are main this group for presidency extensive. So once more, it is a huge deal I really feel for not simply DHS however the entire authorities. So the working group actually is first targeted on assessing current insurance policies, directives and governance processes, actually to determine these gaps as they pertain to AI-specific concerns in the procurement course of, which continues to be a much bigger and greater deal. However they’re now creating some assets for the entire total federal acquisition group. So federally is a giant deal for us. After which in the division particularly, one in every of the huge issues we’ve got going on this 12 months is we simply launched about two weeks in the past what we’re calling our Capsule Initiative. Comparable again to 2015 after we launched the Procurement Innovation Lab, that is only a new instrument to assist our procurement workforce and the total acquisition workforce handle, on this case, 9 FAR-based authorities. So Capsule stands for Champions for Flip of Procurement to Safe the Homeland. We love our acronyms in the authorities. So the backside line is we’ve got some non-FAR-based authorities in the division and another companies have them as nicely. And we would like to be certain our workforce know what the authorities are after they use them and how to use them. So we’ve used them for plenty of years, however I don’t assume we’re utilizing as a lot as we will all through the division. One such authority, for instance, is named the Industrial Options Opening Pilot Program, or CSOP. Once more, that is authority we sort of can attain out and get the nontraditional authorities. Nongovernment, conventional firms that don’t like doing enterprise with a federal grownup do enterprise with the federal authorities fairly often however helps us include that leading edge expertise we wouldn’t have the option to have in any other case. Proper now, we’ve got a number of firms that use it on an everyday foundation, however we actually assume there’s a much bigger want all through the division. So we created this staff to develop coaching, the coach workforce, and in addition actually to simply be certain our workers know how to use these authorities and use them appropriately as we go ahead. So there’s a few huge initiatives we’ve got. The very last thing I’ll talked about is a strategic plan we created a few years in the past and truly it runs out this fiscal 12 months. So we’re taking a look at creating a brand new plan going ahead for the subsequent 4 years, 5 years. A few month in the past, we met with all the heads of contracting, 9 all through the division. We had an off-site. We sort of actually talked about what are their priorities and how can we feed their priorities into our priorities. And there are some constant themes that at No. 1, this has been for years. We wish to assist our requirement house owners to have the option to develop their necessities and get them to us. Like and that sounds easy however I’ve all through my profession I’ve all the time heard we ever obtained the assertion of labor, but it surely wants loads of work. So we would like to have that as one in every of our priorities going ahead. How can we assist the program managers, program workers to assist outline the necessities in a ample method, working with business to make it possible for we get the instruments and providers we want to help our mission.
Tom Temin: Wow.
Paul Courtney: So this stuff, Tom, that we’re working on.
Tom Temin: That’s fairly a bit. We’re talking with Paul Courtney. He’s the chief procurement officer at Homeland Security. And I would like to get again to the concept. Is there a way that AI, artificial intelligence can in a roundabout way enhance the procurement course of?
Paul Courtney: Most positively. I believe a few ideas on that. Once more, I don’t assume the division’s alone on these ideas. One is we’ve been utilizing some types of AI for plenty of years. And most of them do these paths that take loads of time, take loads of effort, however actually doesn’t use loads of brainpower like performing some. For example, I’ll provide you with an instance. For market analysis, if you need to exit and have a look at inside the web for details about particular necessities we’re making an attempt to do. It may take a very long time to do the search, pull all of it collectively and have that market analysis report, for lack of a greater time period, accomplished. Properly, you should use artificial intelligence to go discover that data and convey it again to you. It nonetheless wants to be validated by human. So it doesn’t take away that half. However these sorts of issues I believe are extraordinarily helpful for our procurement workforce and, once more, the total acquisition workforce. Together with that, we like to use instruments that different companies have created. There’s the dedication accountability bot that the Military has created. DORA is the identify of it. This helps once more. It does. The arduous work of pulling the paperwork collectively doesn’t take loads of brainpower, but it surely takes loads of work to pull paperwork collectively to make that dedication. At in the day it wants to be, once more, an actual stay human making the dedication. However in the event you can have the stuff at your fingertips, I believe it makes our life lots simpler. Just lately, we had an indication by our CIO’s workplace, who has an exceptional group of cyber professionals working in all issues AI. We had a demo and all the instruments which are on the market at our fingertips of our division workers to use. I discussed one ChatGPT and never endorsing any of them. However simply these generative AI instruments which are on the market now may also assist our requirement or develop the necessities. Prefer it’s wonderful what the demo that we had by our professionals in the CIO group that may open the eyes of loads of our procurement professionals in what’s in the realm of chance. Plenty of pleasure about it. However once more, we would like to make it possible for the one who’s going to be signing the contract or the one who’s sending us the requirement truly is closely concerned. It isn’t simply doing nicely. I’ve this generative AI to do all the work, and I’ll simply ship it over and ship it to business and the whole lot’s accomplished. It’s truly not that simple, however I actually assume it’s a sport changer for us in the procurement workspace going ahead.
Tom Temin: Yeah. So that you’re going to be spending loads of time this coming variety of months in depth on that seems like?
Paul Courtney: Sure, Tom. That’s true. Now we have one factor that the CIO store has additionally accomplished is that they created an AI Corps. They’ve employed 30, 40 individuals who from personal business who’re specialists in the AI space. And a kind of people are embedded with us proper now who’re closely relying on him and what he’s doing. One factor taking a look at provide chain, the procurement impacts of provide chain, taking a look at AI use circumstances inside procurement. Once more, it’s nice collaborative efforts we’ve got inside the division working with our CIO colleagues on all issues AI. So positively very enthusiastic about this. Once more, I believe it is a huge deal. They’ll get loads of huge modifications in the procurement workspace over time. However I believe that is a kind of game-changing moments.
Tom Temin: And let’s discuss briefly about the non-FAR-based authorities. Would OTA, for instance, be a part of that? Does DHS have OTA authority?
Paul Courtney: Good query. So once I talked about the Capsule on what they’re doing. One is the CSOP I discussed. One is a Small Enterprise Innovation Analysis and Small Enterprise Know-how Switch program. Now we have these authorities and we did have OTA authority for prototyping different issues till the finish of fiscal 12 months 24. And we’ve got a lapse presently. We’re working with our coverage retailers and with the Hill to get their authority again. In order we get it again, we’ll make it possible for our program workplace know. However presently, we did have a momentary, hopefully momentary lapse of our OTA authority. Once more, I believe it’s a kind of instruments that our science and expertise makes use of. Our workplace makes use of that extensively all through the division. So there’s positively one thing we would like to have inside the division to use. However presently, we do not need OTA authority. We do have some legacy OTA authority for a few of the airports and different issues. However I’m strictly speaking about for prototyping and people sorts of issues.
Tom Temin: It appears, to your workplace, the delay in ultimate appropriations is much less of an affect than it’s for the elements who is perhaps launching new packages. For instance, say there is perhaps a brand new screening gambit that the TSA would do or one thing, however they will’t do this underneath persevering with decision authority. They’ve to wait till the funds are there for brand spanking new packages. Honest method to put it?
Paul Courtney: That’s positively a good method to put it. Yeah once more, that is it’s grow to be nearly each single 12 months. I can’t even bear in mind the final time we had appropriations on October 1st. So it does trigger program delays for brand spanking new packages. They clearly have to wait till we get the appropriation earlier than they begin for the 12 months. You can not begin a brand new program underneath a CR. Appropriate.
Tom Temin: And what is going to you inform, say, the new secretary and the new politicals after they arrive? What is going to they want to learn about what you’re doing?
Paul Courtney: So we did have the touchdown groups for the new administration have landed. And we’ve got a pair hundred RFI requests for data to this point that we’re working on. We’re excited to allow them to know all the arduous work that our workers have accomplished over the years. And simply to put some love throwing out stats for FY 24, the division award, about $26 billion in items and providers and a bit over 60,000 transactions. So it’s a monumental quantity of labor. I discussed earlier than the 1500 procurement workers working in the division, the bigger acquisition workers is about 15 or 16,000 workers. So there’s a massive contingency of the 240, 250,000 workers in the division which are a part of that acquisition workforce. So nice issues, whether or not it’s ensuring we meet all the small enterprise targets, which we’ve accomplished for six years in a row now with A’s and A-pluses. This previous 12 months, we exceeded each single aim we got one in every of the one in every of the few high 5 companies to do this. So all the time excited to discuss all the nice work our workers has accomplished and can proceed to do going ahead in the new fiscal 12 months.
Tom Temin: And might you utilize I perhaps to reply these couple of a whole lot RFIs from the touchdown groups?
Paul Courtney: Like nice query. We truly obtained on this previous Saturday. So we’re working more durable proper now. In order you possibly can think about the deadlines are coming quick and livid. However once more, it’s a chance for us to share all the nice work that we’ve got accomplished and all the nice work we’re doing and all the nice work we’ll do. So thrilling occasions, positively.