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GCN Home > 10/09/06 issue

Stamp of approvals

GCN Agency Award | Animal and plant service speeds permit approval process while adding security, accountability

By Sami Lais, Special to GCN

Psst, want a great deal on some South American orchids? Canadian timber? African monkeys? Swedish biotechnology for research? The funds, shippers, receivers, means of transport—all the details—are negotiable except one: You’re going to need a permit from the Agriculture Department’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service.

Getting that permit once took an average of four days of racing around town. But since April 3, you can get it in as little as one day without stirring from your chair.

More on the way

And that’s just the beginning of the benefits to users, taxpayers and the department, said Alison Young, program manager for APHIS’ Comprehensive El- ectronic Permitting System known as ePermits.

Via the ePermits Web portal, registered users can apply for permits, pay for them online, check their status and receive the permits electronically, as well as on paper.

“It’s also improved oversight,” Young said. States and other departments can access the system online to verify that permits have been issued. Within APHIS, the transparency of the system and the ability to run queries have made a big difference, she said.

Because system components consist of Web services built with open-source code and within a service-oriented architecture (SOA), any and all services are reusable by APHIS and other agencies, said Kevin O’Connor, account manager for ePermits contractor Science Applications International Corp. of San Diego.

A Web service can be as simple as “generate a letter,” O’Connor explained. Although Riverdale, Md.-based APHIS issues permits electronically via ePermits, “we still have to issue a signed permit, and generating that paper permit and letter is a Web service.” The APHIS system has 100 types of letters, all customizable, and all reusable as Web services, he said.

Something borrowed

SAIC, which began working on the $12 million project in 2002, based ePermits on an application it had built for the Environmental Protection Agency, O’Connor said.

That past performance was the most important element in selecting SAIC for the performance-based, fixed-price contract, Young said. “EPA was happy with the solution, and we [could save time and money by having] SAIC tailor parts of that system for our use.”

More news on related topics: Business Process Management, E-Government, Management, IT Management, Web Strategies



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