The Government Accountability Office has listed 26 recommendations to help the Department of Homeland Security boost government operations save costs and address high-risk concerns.

The recommendations include the procurement of an electronic health records tool for the U.S. Coast Guard, adoption of a cybersecurity platform from the National Institute of Standards and Technology and cost analysis for future southwest border segments, GAO said on April 19.

Additionally, the Transportation Security Administration has decreased the funds for the Behavior Detection Program as part of GAO’s recommendations to validate supporting proofs on the utilization of behavioral indicators for threat detection.

GAO noted that DHS has implemented four of the recommendations in the list to update the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services as well as the U.S. Border Patrol’s operations.

The Department of Defense’s office of the chief management officer issued an initial plan to reform DoD’s enterprise business operations on Friday. 

OCMO set up three reform teams – human resources, supply chain and logistics and category management – to “establish a culture of continuous improvement focused on results and accountability” and oversee four activities cited in Section 921 of the National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal 2019, according to the report.

The HR reform team is developing three reform efforts related to civilian resources management and those are regulatory reform, civilian hiring improvement and HR service delivery. The team also supports force lethality and readiness through workforce planning and management initiatives.

The logistics management activity under FY 2019 NDAA falls under the supply chain and logistics reform team, which intends to build sustainment, maximize buying power and increase materiel visibility. The team advances munitions readiness, maintenance work packages and strategic sourcing of sustainment or commodity procurement reform initiatives in coordination with the Defense Logistics Agency.

The category management reform team handles services contracting and real estate management activities and is working on a cross-agency procurement process designed to achieve savings and efficiencies across the department.

The report noted that OCMO is carrying out effectiveness and efficiency assessments of DoD field activities or DAFAs and defense agencies to determine shared services that are duplicative or similar in support of “Fourth Estate” reform efforts.

The Office of Management and Budget released a memorandum Friday to advance the adoption of shared services to improve government operations’ efficiency and meet the cross-agency priority goal for sharing quality services in the President’s Management Agenda.

“The memo establishes the new model for identifying, planning and operating government-wide shared services,” Suzette Kent, federal chief information officer and 2019 Wash100 Award winner, said in a statement published Friday.

The memo calls for the government to implement an integrated approach to shared services through the development of interagency priorities and standards for shared services, creation of shared governance, centralized capabilities and performance expectations and continued efforts to speed up the adoption of existing quality services.

The document also establishes a process for designating agencies as quality services management offices, creates an accountability and governance model to enable QSMO performance excellence through the Business Standards Council and Shared Services Governance Board and requires all CFO Act agencies to name a senior accountable point of contain to coordinate initiatives with regard to shared services implementation.

Emily Murphy, head of the General Services Administration and a 2019 Wash100 Award recipient, said GSA and OMB have worked together in the past year to establish an implementation framework for governmentwide shared services.

“GSA is excited to continue the administration’s focus on shared services, both in our leadership role and as one of the initial agencies selected to implement this strategy,” said Murphy. 

Naval Information Warfare Center Atlantic works to support the technical needs of a platform to manage the F-35 aircraft’s logistics activities. The Autonomic Logistics Information System facilitates the aircraft’s operations, maintenance, prognostics, supply chain, customer support services, training and technical data in one integrated platform, the U.S. Navy said Thursday. 

NIWC delivers software and architecture engineering, installation and testing support to keep ALIS running for the Navy’s F-35 operations. 

“NIWC Atlantic is strategically placed to bring new capabilities at a reduced cost to the program with a focus on products, people and processes,” said John Smith, information technology systems architect at NIWC Atlantic. The center functions to address the information warfare needs of the Navy, as well as joint forces.

The Department of Energy’s Sandia National Labs is working to integrate automated technology into hypersonic vehicles to support flight and mission planning and improve aircraft survivability, National Defense reported Thursday.

Alex Roesler, deputy director of Sandia’s integrated military systems center, said that automating mission and flight planning for hypersonic aircraft would accelerate testing operations that normally require extensive expert input and take weeks to plan during the U.S. Army’s Mad Scientist event in Texas.

“What we think is needed are solutions that are artificial intelligence- and machine learning-based that automates that analysis,” he noted.

The lab is collaborating with various universities to develop AI-driven aerospace platforms as part of the Autonomous New Mexico research initiative. Sandia is conducting tests to support the development of hypersonic vehicles over the past three decades.

Grant Schneider, federal chief information security officer, said the government should expand its approach for providing security to the federal supply chain to stay ahead of the latest threats, Nextgov reported Thursday.

The government implements government-wide restrictions to secure networks and contractors. Russian firm Kaspersky Lab and Chinese companies ZTE and Huawei were previously banned from selling products in the U.S. government due to alleged ties to foreign spies. However, Schneider said preventing technologies from entering the government is not enough.  

“In my mind, they’re really whack-a-mole solutions to a challenge that we need a far more systemic approach to,” he said at the McAfee Security Through Innovation Summit.

The federal CISO suggests incentivizing cybersecurity in the marketplace and encouraging agencies, companies and individuals not to buy the cheapest products and services to assure security. Schneider serves as the head of a newly-established federal council that monitors threats to the government supply chain.

Undersecretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment and 2019 Wash100 Award recipient Ellen Lord conducted a meeting with the participants of the Department of Defense’s Public-Private Talent Exchange initiative.

The initiative has assigned private sector employees to civilian defense positions and vice versa to allow the participants to comprehend each area’s operations and share practices, DoD said Thursday. The participants shared their experiences during the performance of their assignments and gave recommendations to reinforce the program for future participants.

“This program presents an incredible opportunity for development and growth, I strongly recommend those interested step up and take advantage,” said Lord.

The agency will proceed with the next batch of exchange participants in January 2020.

About the Wash100

The Wash100 award, now in its sixth year, recognizes the most influential executives in the GovCon industry as selected by the Executive Mosaic team in tandem with online nominations from the GovCon community. Representing the best of the private and public sector, the winners demonstrate superior leadership, innovation, reliability, achievement and vision.

Visit the Wash100 site to learn about the other 99 winners of the 2019 Wash100 Award. On the site, you can submit your 10 votes for the GovCon executives of consequence that you believe will have the most significant impact in 2019.