Designing Software Solutions

Lightweight Handheld Mortar Ballistic Computer

Scenario: Speed, agility, accuracy, clear communications—these are keys to success in almost any endeavor, and particularly so on the battlefield. The ability to fire quickly and accurately and then move to another location is critical to improving the safety of America's troops. Using the Lightweight Handheld Mortar Ballistic Computer (LHMBC), America's soldiers can now set up and calculate a fire control solution, fire, and begin redeployment in under one minute—all this while maintaining real-time communication with their command center.

Run on ruggedized handheld PDAs, the LHMBC has been fielded in Iraq and will soon be fielded in Afghanistan. HPTi has played a critical role on the LHMBC Team to make this happen. Our team members have contributed to engineering decisions that have maximized the unit's performance. These contributions include developing database interfaces and a digital communications systems as well as optimizing software to meet critical time requirements. HPTi personnel have also been the main developers of the peripheral interface system, which allows the software to receive data from external devices.

Paladin Support

Scenario: Anyone who relies on software knows the importance of quality and reliability. Software installed on America's combat vehicles, such as the Paladin Self Propelled Howitzer's Automated Fire Control System (AFCS), is critical to soldier and civilian safety. Independent Validation and Verification (IV&V) is used as a systematic way to perform technical evaluations on software and the tools used to develop software (schedules, procedures, templates, etc.). IV&V ensures that requirements are well defined, complete in scope, and testable.

HPTi provides software engineering, process, earned value management, and IV&V services for the Army's Paladin AFCS Software Block upgrade program, ensuring that the software developed for the Paladin AFCS is given the benefit of the very best practices and procedures. With HPTi's help, the project was the first in the U.S. Army to be assessed at CMMI level 5. CMMI is a best-practices model that addresses the development and maintenance of products and services covering the product lifecycle from conception through delivery and maintenance. Projects that wish to obtain this prestigious recognition must follow rigorous guidelines. The result of instituting the required practices is that the products developed are superior in quality and performance to efforts developed under less stringent circumstances.

Secure Payment System

Scenario: During 2004, the Financial Management Service (FMS) of the U.S. Department of the Treasury began operational deployment of the Secure Payment System (SPS). FMS is the primary disburser of federal payments on behalf of the federal government. SPS enables individual federal agencies to securely certify requests for the Treasury to issue payments on their behalf. Designed and developed by HPTi, this Internet-based system certifies trillions of dollars annually. With single payments potentially larger than $1 billion, SPS is one of the most highly secured systems in the U.S. government.

To tackle this challenging engagement, HPTi assembled an interdisciplinary team that integrated the talents of systems architects, engineers, security specialists, Web-based developers, and program management specialists. The preliminary architecture and design was completed in 2002, the beta release of the system was delivered in mid-2003, and the first major operational release occurred in late summer 2004.

Enabling Law Enforcement Intelligence Sharing

Scenario: A special agent working for the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) chances across information that a group of student pilots has requested take-off instructions only; the students are not interested in learning how to land. Is this a key piece to an evolving puzzle? Who should be told? What should the agent do with this information?

Prior to 9/11, this was a very real situation for the FBI. Field agents across the country had information that, in hindsight, would have been invaluable. However, there was no effective means to accept unrequested data not tied to a specific investigation, analyze it for potential relevance, and share it with other government agencies.

HPTi has recently built a system for the FBI that allows the Bureau to take raw, national security intelligence from the field and—using an automated workflow solution—push that information to FBI headquarters. As the data is received, it is restructured and standardized so that it may be analyzed and disseminated to the greater intelligence community. HPTi's system framework and resulting solution have greatly increased the FBI's ability to collect and act on information much more quickly than previously possible.

Gaining Time for FBI Agents

Scenario: An FBI field agent needs to submit a request for surveillance under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). Speed is of the essence—and locating and using a secure fax or courier service will cost valuable time. The agent must quickly and securely communicate and track this request across government organizations.

The FISA Management System (FISAMS) is the system of record for all FISA requests processed by the Office of General Counsel, the FISA unit at the FBI. HPTi developed FISAMS to manage requests for FISA surveillance as a real-time Web application. The system eliminates the need to fax or courier documents. The program is the first Web-based FBI system—and the first FBI system to physically interconnect with the Department of Justice (DOJ).

Not only does the HPTi solution buy valuable time for FBI investigators, but it also generates management reports and metrics, has a full text search, and restricts access based on a user's role. The sensitive data benefits from layers of security that don't hinder the investigation with cumbersome restrictions. The user interface shows a dashboard of tasks and status indicators, including automated e-mail notifications. With this system, HPTi helps the FBI streamline a task that is difficult enough—protecting the security of our nation.

Securing Communications for the Department of Justice

Scenario: More and more people are falling victim to identity theft through the Internet. One of the Department of Justice's duties is to protect the American public from this type of crime. However, with over 112,000 employees using the Internet daily to share information, the DOJ itself needs protection.

The same criminals who steal information from ordinary citizens are also trying to penetrate government agencies. HPTi is working with the DOJ Office of the Chief Information Officer (CIO) to implement a Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) that will allow for safe and secure communication throughout the department. Using encryption techniques, PKI makes messages invisible to everyone except the people to whom they are intended. HPTi initially developed a department-wide PKI architecture and is now managing the implementation and deployment of this architecture across the department. HPTi is also providing the department with Certification and Authentication (C&A) services, validating that each of the department's IT systems is complying with appropriate security policies and procedures. Together, these services are helping the DOJ ensure that its systems (and the information they contain) are safe—and in the right hands.

Defending against Terrorism

Scenario: After 20 months of planning, 19 terrorists, armed with simple box cutters, hijacked four airliners and caused the greatest loss of life by a single terrorist act on U.S. soil. The 9/11 hijackers operated in the United States for nearly two years, preparing for the attack. In the aftermath, analysts discovered dozens of telltale data points that could have alerted authorities to the threat.

As 9/11 proved, our nation's defenders often collect the data they need, but they struggle to sift through the vast amount of superfluous information for the crucial data points. Often, they are unsure of what data is even relevant. HPTi is helping them meet this challenge. Our knowledge discovery and visualization projects enable analysts to derive great insights from overwhelming amounts of data. HPTi develops tools that support analytical reasoning, visual representations, data representations, transformations, production, and dissemination of intelligence information. We equip analysts to identify threats and defend America.

Implementing Agency-wide Budgeting Solutions

Scenario: Different offices, even offices within the same agency or department, require differing views of budgetary and expenditure data to support the specific operating characteristics of their organization. However, most agency and departmental systems are designed to support the preparation, submission, and execution of an enterprise-wide budget—not the individual needs of specific offices.

In response to this issue, HPTi designed, developed, integrated, and continues to support the Project Tracking System (PTS). PTS is a budgetary system that provides a common, centralized tool for managing and reporting budget and spending data throughout an organization. It allows individual budgets to be created and tailored at the office level—while still meeting larger, enterprise-wide requirements.

Original development on the project began in 2001 within one division of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and went into production in mid-2002. The initial user base was approximately 50 IRS budget personnel who were managing a budget of $150 million. In 2003, the PTS system was adopted by IRS Modernization and Information Technology Services (MITS), making the PTS the budget-tracking system for all IRS-wide IT projects—and for a $1.6 billion annual budget managed by over 200 budget analysts. Recognizing that the requirements of the MITS were universal across the government, HPTi began marketing PTS as a cross-agency solution. In 2005, the Veterans Administration (VA) also adopted the solution. Thanks to the technology transfer efforts of the IRS and HPTi team, the cost of the solution to the VA was a fraction of the cost of the original development. As more agencies adopt this tool, its overall cost will continue to drop relative to the functionality it provides, enabling government agencies to plan and perform their missions more effectively at a lower cost.