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1. Opioid and Contraband Detection and Enforcement
Problem Statement: Thousands of people die each year due to opioid overdoses in Canada from China and via violence driven by illegal arms shipments from the USA
Solution: Assurety helped develop a risk-based program by developing the very first Datawarehouse driven by Python and ETLS processing of over six sources of destination-related data to predict, detect and stop contraband from coming into the country. We performed a statistical analysis of operational data and crime data and several other data sources. Performed regression analysis, covariance analysis, and correlation analysis to get the data ready for a machine learning algorithm.
Services from Assurety: Data Science, Data Analysis, ETL processing, AI / Machine Learning Algorithms, Reporting
Technologies: Python, Pentaho, MySQL,
Client: Canada Border Security Agency
2. FAFSA – Free Application for Federal Student Aid System Re-Engineering
Problem Statement: Old system and code was not maintainable and required re-engineering and integration
Solution: Assurety provided technical architecture, solutions architecture, systems engineering, and software engineering and maintenance services to re-engineer the FASFSA platform and then provided maintenance services for several years. The bigger challenge was to understand and document all business rules. The solution required integration management and technical expertise.
Services from Assurety: Technical Architecture, Systems Engineering, Software Engineering, Reporting
Technologies: Java, Drupal, Oracle
Client: Department of Education
3. Content Management Migration
Problem Statement: Under the Obama Administration Guidelines Department of Education needed to move to open platforms and this challenge included moving all content management applications to Drupal which was new and had many risks associated with security at the time of implementation
Solution: Assurety brought in highly experienced resources who understood migration challenges as well as had expertise in developing solutions in Drupal and providing an extra security layer, which was custom built to minimize challenges posed by the Drupal platform at that time. Assurety migrated the whole platform in a two-year period provided technical leadership and direction and implementation services.
Services from Assurety: System Migration, Application Development, Integration, Management, Content Management
Technologies: Drupal, Oracle
Client: Department of Education
4. Marketing Campaign Management and Database Development
Problem Statement: USPS Marketing Database and its campaign management had been outsourced to two external companies and USPS wanted to take that responsibility back but was having trouble taking over the project due to many technical and documentation related challenges
Solution: Assurety was brought to engineer a new system which includes USPS marketing data, operational data, tracking data, as well add data from a Credit Bureau (Equifax) and add social media handles from Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. The goal was to take the data from the old marketing system, transform it for the new system, and add additional data sources to provide a comprehensive campaign management platform for customer relationship management reaching both commercial customers and consumers. Assurety developed the entire system in less than a year, migrated all data from the Terra Data old marketing database into the new Oracle based solution and enhanced its capabilities by developing algorithms to predict events at an address and then to use them to develop campaigns and also share data with marketers without sharing the PII.
Services from Assurety: Data Migration, New Datawarehouse and operational data store development, Predictive Analytics algorithm development and Reporting.
Technologies: Teradata, Oracle (migrated to Oracle), Java, Tableau visualization, SAS regression and Predictive modeling
Client: USPS
5. Business Proces Re-Engineering
Problem Statement: Completely paper-driven processes had a huge cost and lack of electronic data didn’t provide efficiency, transparency, and automation opportunities and USPS needed to transform the commercial channel
Solution: Assurety performed business process engineering, mapping current workflows and processes and reengineered them to simplify the customer experience, bring more efficiency to the acceptance, verification, and induction processes, and developed an enterprise system that brought in approximately $100M in daily revenues and cutting paper costs and removing errors inherent in manual processes. Assurety’s challenge was also to develop a VLDB (Very Large Database) that was an ODS (Operational Data Store) processing 30-40 Billion rows of data every three to four days and making it scale and provide both transactional efficiency and reporting.
Services from Assurety: Business Process Engineering, Very Large Database design and Development, enterprise Systems Development, and Engineering.
Technologies: Oracle, Java, ColdFusion, IBM MQ Series, MicroStrategy, Data IQ
Client: USPS
6. Risk-Based Fraud Detection Program Development
Problem Statement: There was a $1.6Billion fraud predicted in the Commercial channel for mail and parcels and there was no data-driven risk-based program at OIG and OIG needed SMES and Data experts to develop such a program
Solution: Assurety was hired to bring in a team to develop a program that considered program governance, data governance, Subject Matter Expertise in the commercial channel, and technical Expertise with Database Development, Datawarehouse and Datamart and Data lake development, Reporting, and ETL expertise. Assurety Developed the system and continues to manage and enhance it today in 2019. The system had detected, identified, and caught fraudulent activities in the millions of dollars since its inception and now the system has been enhanced to work with contraband coming in through the eCommerce supply chain into the country. Assurety system has a 98% accuracy in predictions of both contraband fraud and financial fraud with customs fees, shippers, and mailers not paying for parcels and mail deliberately.
Services from Assurety: Program Management, Data Governance, Fraud Detection, Expertise, Database, and Datawarehouse development and Machine learning (AI) Algorithm development to catch anomalies and update the models to improve detection.
Technologies: SAS, Oracle, Tableau, Teradata
Client: Office of Inspector General
7. Digital Transformation of the Commercial B2B Portfolio
Problem Statement: USPS Commercial business channel management, needed extensive digital transformation to be able to measure the performance of the organization and its KPI to cut costs, improve service delivery, improve customer experience and develop new products.
Solution: Assurety was brought to help with strategy and then design and implementation of multiple programs under the portfolio that would allow KPI measurements through digital transformation. This journey included moving from paper-based transactions to digitization, to digitalization, to digital transformation, and then to business transformation by re-engineering the digital solutions into a single platform that can support all verticals within the USPS. Then using the data and advanced BI/Analytics to optimize the strategy and decision support and provide avenues to R&D to innovate products, cut operational and transportation costs and to develop deep insights into the customer, and improve customer experience.
This was a fifteen-year journey for the USPS and Assurety to provide leadership and direction in re-engineering the business processes and workflows into data-driven simplified workflows to enable automation which in turn allowed for cost cuts and product innovation.
Services from Assurety: Business Strategy, Program and Portfolio development, Technical PMO Integration Management, Technical Architecture, Systems Engineering, Software Engineering, Database Engineering, Data warehousing, BI/Analytics, and statistical modeling and Reporting.
Technologies: Oracle, Java, Oracle Financials, MicroStrategy
Client: USPS
8. Technology Roadmap to utilize Delivery data to develop a Digital Marketing Platform
Problem Statement: Canada Post Corporation (CPC) sought a digital strategy for a new Mail Visibility and digital marketing platform. The new program would need to help CPC’s commercial customers reach their customers in new ways with targeted marketing and allow for future digital product offerings. The system needed to capture and communicate scanning data in real time and integrate the new digital marketing platform with existing structures. Due to the critical nature of mail delivery, there could be no interruption in service to CPC customers during the rollout of the program, so interdependencies and risks needed to be managed upfront.
Solution: Assurety was retained to collect essential requirements, identify gaps and develop a business and technical strategy roadmap for implementing a Mail Visibility and digital marketing platform. Assurety engaged more than 60 members of CPC’s staff and third-party vendors to understand needs and gaps and 230 documents were reviewed. Assurety created a roadmap for immediate implementation and presented a report to the senior management of CPC for future development of the Mail Visibility program. The engagement was completed in a very short amount of time and helped CPC launch their program in a timely manner.
Services from Assurety: Digital transformation expertise, data governance, consulting, technology roadmap
Technologies: SAS, Oracle, Java
Clients – Canada Post Corporation
9. Intelligent Mail Barcode
Problem Statement: During the George W. Bush administration, Congress passed a law requiring USPS to gather data and track average delivery times, and to create incentives for the mailing industry to either invest more work-share or pay additional fees to maintain USPS cash flow.
The congressional mandate required a tiered fee structure to give additional discounts to mailings that were sorted in ways that saved USPS labor and reduced sorting times. USPS was only given a timeline, but not a rubric of how to implement or meet any of these new requirements. The Postal Service saw an opportunity to automate more of their processes, and implement seamless acceptance while they were at it, which would revolutionize the way every aspect of commercial mail was sorted, handled and billed within the system.
Solution: Assurety helped USPS meet each requirement of their federal mandate, and ramp up Seamless Acceptance. Assurety devised an automated QA program that analyzed the quality of each mailing by a certain company, and after review, assigned them a discount structure based on their ability to meet certain benchmarks.
The solution involved deploying a 17-digit barcode that includes information as granular as the position of the address within a carrier’s route, along with computer-selected, digitally-confirmed spot checks of individual mail pieces as they are inducted into a USPS facility, thus eliminating the need for most DMUs all together. As a mailer increased their ability to sort at the highest level – and maintain the most accurate address information, the system bumped them into a higher discount tier.
This risk-based plan was only made possible by Assurety creating a completely digital supply chain, and played a role as thought leaders in driving the design and implementation of the program, inducing barcode design.
Services from Assurety: Services from Assurety: Leadership, Discovery, program and technology governance, requirements management, Customer Acceptance Testing, Communications, Complex Problem Solving
Technologies: Oracle, Java, MicroStrategy
Client: USPS
