AFS Wins Spot on $450M USDA DAITSS Contract; Elaine Turville, Barrett Witkin Quoted

Accenture Federal Services (AFS) and Criterion Systems Inc. have been awarded a spot on the five-year, $450 million U.S Department of Agriculture (USDA) Information Technology Support Services (DAITSS) contract, AFS reported on Wednesday. The blanket purchase agreement (BPA) was issued by the U.S. Forest Service and available to all USDA agencies.

“This is a great opportunity to help the USDA advance its use of tested commercial technologies to improve IT services,” said Elaine Turville, an AFS managing director and the company’s client account lead for the USDA. “Improvements made to the USDA’s IT services can also help lead the way for the use of other advanced technologies, including artificial intelligence, robotic process automation and machine learning.”

Under a contractor teaming arrangement, the companies will work to streamline enterprise information technology (IT) support services and centralize procurement functions.

AFS and Criterion Systems will provide IT services, including strategic IT management support, hosting and cloud support, website and application support, software and hardware support, administration support, and IT security and compliance services.

Criterion has delivered software, hardware and applications services to the USDA Digital Infrastructure Services Center. The company’s efforts will secure commercial cloud capability, increase cloud adoption and improve customer experience.

AFS has previously supported USDA’s mission-critical IT projects, including the Farmers.gov portal, Ask USDA, and the Chief Executive Officer (CXO) Dashboards. Farmers.gov has provided seamless, convenient and efficient customer interactions within the USDA.

Ask USDA was designed to deliver solutions such as contact by phone, email, web form, live chat and 24/7 self-service tools. AFS has deployed more than 200 Executive dashboards, featuring critical data to support informed decision-making at scale.

“We are honored to serve an organization full of hard-working heroes, including more than 10,000 wildland firefighters. We are eager to bring Accenture’s best to empower the Forest Service’s passionate, mission-focused employees — whether that be our aerospace industry insights or Industry X.0 capabilities, which include the internet of things, mobile-at-the-edge, machine learning and analytics technologies,” said Barrett Witkin, a managing director at AFS.