Mary-Louise Hoffman
Fairfax, Virginia-based consulting firm Data and Analytic Solutions has been selected to help the Internal Revenue Service explore approaches to accelerate the agency's contracting process.
The agency said Monday it will work with DAS through a research partnership aimed at bringing together procurement professionals, university professors and students who have been educated in machine learning.
Researchers plan to conduct a dataset review to determine what forces affect the IRS' timeframe for awarding federal contracts and how the agency could manage the efficiency of that process.
IRS added the alliance looks to increase the accuracy of a predictive algorithm used to forecast when the agency will finalize a purchase, as well as help acquisition personnel to adopt best practices in the private sector and obtain data knowledge.
“The intent of this research project is to enable us to hone-in on key factors impacting our time to award and identify tools that can be utilized to make process improvements to shorten our lead time, more effectively allocate our human resources, and better serve our customers,†said IRS Chief Procurement Officer Shanna Webbers.
