Charles Lyons-Burt
Case management systems, like those offered by cloud and software company Appian, are “critically important,” but also “expensive to maintain and expensive to implement,” according to Laura Parsons, vice president at Maximus’ federal business. Such interfaces are meant to assist with investigations and data organization; one example being the U.S. Air Force Office of Special Investigations’ recently launched OSI Records, Investigations & Operations Network, or ORION.
Parsons spoke on a panel at the Potomac Officers Club’s 2024 Air Defense Summit last week about lessons learned from ORION, moderated by Appian’s own Industry Lead for Global Defense and Intelligence Matt Beran. ORION was first introduced in March 2023 but was officially integrated and went live earlier this month. According to Maj. Justin Soderlund, a special agent managing the program, ORION breaks down a number of barriers for the Air Force and the Department of Defense as a whole.
“I don’t have to theoretically dream about what it would look like to do intelligent document processing. I can do that. I don’t have to dream about, ‘well what would a chatbot look like? What kind of policies will I have to write to use it?’ I can just build a controlled data fabric so I can just use it,” Soderlund said at the event.
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ORION’s Wager & Ethos
PMs like Soderlund are hoping that ORION will transform how the Air Force processes its data and communicates about it at over 300 locations internationally. As indicated above, the way the system has been set up means that to make changes or adjustments, Air Force personnel don’t have to wait for “big enterprise IT to come forward.” Rather, it’s enabling them to “build and fail quickly” to work toward a goal of strengthened security.
“Part of this has just been fun because it’s new, it’s never been done and it’s taking IT and allowing it to operate in one of the most secure areas of the Air Force without having to wait for the rest of the Air Force’s AI problems or the rest of the data problems to be solved,” Soderlund said.
ORION is rooted in automation and artificial intelligence developments. Its team even created an algorithm alongside Johns Hopkins that evaluates all of the Air Force homicide department’s death cases that are suicide-related and derives insights based on the analyses. Soderlund noted that they’re one of the few agencies to look into every suicide that occurs in their community.
Future Plans for Federal Case Management
By the end of the year, Soderlund said the Air Force is aiming to transition ORION to an Impact Level 6 classified environment. Next to adopt a system like ORION is probably the intelligence community, but the rest of the DOD is also likely to take up some form of automated, tech-assisted case management soon.
“Whether they choose to use the exact same model we do, with the same vendors and the same architecture and everything else, is up to them,” commented Soderlund.
Edwin Herchert, branch chief for mission applications and enterprise physical security at the Pentagon Force Protection Agency, also participated in the discussion.
