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Our Contractor Responsibility & Award Preparation Automation project, CODY, has significantly improved the contractor vetting and award documentation process.
“Automating the Employee Hazard Assessment Certification is a groundbreaking design and use of technology for job hazard assessments. The GSA form should be used as a model hazard assessment for all government agencies.”
— PBS Office of Acquisition Management Developer, Susan Dobrosavljevic
Previously, this process required manually compiling data from multiple systems like SAM.gov, FPDS, and Pegasys, which was time-consuming and prone to error. CODY automates these tasks using Robotic Process Automation or RPA.
Three pathways were designed within CODY to streamline the contractor suitability and offer review process:
Since launching in February 2023, CODY has performed over 18,000 actions, saving an estimated 16,000+ hours. The Federal Acquisition Services is implementing CODY agency-wide, projecting $423,000 in savings by replacing an external contract. For example, CODY automates daily vendor data for the TTL STR team, replacing manual processing and reducing errors.
We also avoided $100,000 in software licensing costs by developing a custom script for file merging and adapted CODY to assist with OASIS+ vendor reviews. CODY exemplifies how strategic automation can streamline processes, empower colleagues, and deliver value to our agency and taxpayers.
Contract closeout had long been a significant operational challenge across the Public Buildings Service. The process was highly manual, time-intensive, and inconsistent, requiring Contracting Officers, Budget Analysts, and CORs to reconcile data across multiple systems while managing complex financial reviews. These inefficiencies increased the risk of errors, rework, and premature closeouts, while limiting staff capacity for higher-value acquisition work.
“The goal was simple: relieve our acquisition teams of the burden of manual data sourcing and financial reconciliation. We wanted to empower them with timely financial insights, allowing them to make smarter decisions throughout the contract lifecycle. And CLARA has delivered! This bot has been a game-changer.”
— PBS Office of Acquisition Management Director, Joslann Feldpausch
To address these challenges, PBS developed CLARA, an unattended robotic process automation solution designed to streamline and standardize contract closeout activities. CLARA automates several of the most labor-intensive steps in the closeout process, including financial reviews, preparation of releases of claims, and drafting de-obligation modifications. By reducing reliance on manual data entry and judgment-based reconciliation, the solution improves accuracy and consistency across contracts.
Since implementation, CLARA has:
CLARA now proactively prevents those errors from occurring, reducing downstream corrections and improving overall compliance.
CLARA demonstrates how targeted automation can modernize acquisition operations, reduce administrative burden, and strengthen financial oversight while enabling staff to focus on mission-critical work.
Timely invoice processing is essential to effective financial management, yet the Accounts Payable process previously relied on extensive manual tracking, spreadsheet analysis, and ad hoc follow-ups across multiple systems. These inefficiencies made it difficult to consistently resolve invoices before statutory due dates, resulting in significant interest payments and avoidable costs to the government.
“Interest paid by GSA has drastically fallen since this bot was put in place. We estimate this bot helped us to avoid a total of $2M in interest charges on late payments.”
— OCFO Financial Management Director, John Rich
The Accounts Payable Invoice Bot was implemented to improve: visibility, accountability, and timeliness across the invoice approval process. The solution automatically pulls Outstanding Invoice Reports each day and initiates a structured sequence of notifications to all necessary persons. Each notification includes relevant invoice and contract details, and the escalation framework ensures increasing levels of management awareness. Here’s how it works:
Day 1: Notification to COR, CO, and budget analyst about a new invoice.
Day 5 & 10: Reminders to COR, CO, and budget analyst.
Day 15: Escalation to supervisors of COR, CO, and budget analyst.
Day 20: Escalation to second-level supervisors.
Day 25: Another reminder to second-level supervisors, first-level supervisors, COR, CO, and budget analysts.
Day 30: Invoice is past due, and the issue is escalated to the zonal Financial Management Office for resolution.
As a result, interest payments have declined significantly, with an estimated cost avoidance of more than $2 million since deployment. The automation has also reduced the administrative burden on budget analysts, allowing them to focus on higher-level financial analysis and complex payment issues rather than routine monitoring activities.
This solution illustrates how automation can strengthen financial controls, improve compliance, and deliver measurable savings while supporting more effective stewardship of taxpayer resources.
For decades, the Employee Hazard Assessment Certification, or EHAC, process relied on fragmented, manual methods that made consistent compliance with OSHA requirements and collective bargaining agreements difficult to achieve. The process required identifying employees in potentially hazardous roles, notifying them of risks, ensuring appropriate training, and tracking medical monitoring; tasks that were cumbersome and difficult to manage at scale.
Rather than pursuing a costly external system modification, an in-house automation solution was developed to support EHAC requirements through a combination of scripted data analysis and a custom WebApp. The solution analyzes employee job data to identify potential hazard exposure and presents the results in a centralized, accessible interface for process owners and safety managers.
“Automating the Employee Hazard Assessment Certification is a groundbreaking design and use of technology for job hazard assessments. The GSA form should be used as a model hazard assessment for all government agencies.”
— OAS Supervisory Program Analyst, Alicemary Leach
The WebApp supports collaboration among employees, supervisors, and safety staff to confirm hazards, schedule medical evaluations, and track required actions over time. It dynamically updates to reflect workforce changes, ensuring continued accuracy and compliance throughout the year. Thus far, the results have been remarkable:
The Employee Hazard Assessment Certification automation is a groundbreaking achievement. It’s a prime example of how in-house innovation can save money, improve efficiency, and enhance employee safety.
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