IRS announces research partnership with Fairfax company

The Internal Revenue Service’s Office of the Chief Procurement Officer is forming a research partnership with Fairfax-based Data and Analytic Solutions Inc.

The partnership, which also includes a group of academic researchers, will use data science to improve IRS procurement operations. Researchers will examine the length of time it takes to award a government contract.

“As with many agencies, we have a wealth of data available to us to understand where time is being spent in our contracting process,” IRS Chief Procurement Officer Shanna Webbers said in a statement. “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.”

The goal of the project is to have federal agencies buy mission-critical services at a speed similar to the private sector’s contracting process. Researchers will discover and study key factors that affect the time it takes to award contracts. It will also work to improve algorithm accuracies for procurement requests.

Data and Analytic Solutions provides services including data and statistical analysis, analytics automation and data visualization and insights.

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