USDA's Bot Program Avoids $5.3 Million in Annual Costs, Boosts Employee Retention
The Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced its Robotic Process Automation (RPA) has saved $5.3 million in cost avoidance by saving more than 150,000 hours each year. RPA is a bot development that automates repetitive human work using existing user interfaces allowing employees to focus on more critical tasks.
The RPA aligns with USDA Secretary Thomas Vilsack's top priority of ensuring the department's programs are delivered efficiently, effectively, with integrity, and with a focus on customer service.
RPA Program Manager Lattrice Goldsby reported processing data would take between 5,000 and 10,000 hours before the introduction of the bot. With 66 bots in production, the USDA estimates it will save $5.3 million in cost avoidance and 155,989 hours annually.
Earlier this year, the USDA hosted its first bot competition. “It was a three-month competition with participants across the department [producing] prototype automations,” stated Goldsby, “We did weekly educational sessions, and got 11 prototypes, with one now in production. We’re going to do it twice a year.”
Using a nine-step process to develop a bot, employees track how the data is being processed, whether it is structured or unstructured, whether it is scheduled or unscheduled, and how many applications it will touch. The development should take no longer than 12 weeks, must meet qualitative standards, and provide cost and labor savings.
“Velocity—will it increase the speed? Is this one of those processes that we need to get done sooner? Also, are we improving compliance? Will it increase data quality?” stated Goldsby.
Agriculture took advantage of all the free time this manual processing freed up by creating a reskilling program for its employees so they could redirect their energies toward more productive tasks. The reskilling program teaches employees among other things how to conduct business analysis, assess business processes for automation, determine return on investment automation, and understand data types and controls.
“USDA partnered with the Office of Management and Budget to create the cohorts. First in New Orleans, where we attempted to get IT people [to enroll], then in D.C. We went out and advertised the opportunity,” stated Chief Information Officer (CIO) Gary Washington.
Washington reported that the program has graduated 27 cohorts – 19 of which completed the program during the pandemic.
