Digital Process Automation in Defense: 5 Ways to Streamline Operations

Digital process automation (DPA) initiatives aim to partially or fully automate processes involved in various business, military, or government practices that usually need human interaction to work properly. These initiatives will involve low-code tools that allow organizations to automate their process across multiple applications. As the military aims to make processes more efficient, cost-effective, and accurate, DPA is essential to meeting these goals.

Is There a Difference Between Digital Process Automation and Robotic Process Automation in Government?

While DPA and robotic process automation (RPA) both aim to reduce the need for human intervention in government processes, they’re not the same. Like in the private sector, military DPA initiatives focus on automating entire processes, while RPA focuses on automating individual tasks via bots. These bots are usually coded to perform repetitive, time-consuming functions that usually don’t require much human intervention. 

Since DPAs and RPAs can speed up individual tasks and streamline entire processes, they’re often used together to enhance an organization’s overall efficiency.

5 Ways Digital Process Automation Initiatives Streamline Military Processes

As the military aims to modernize its processes and systems, DPA and RPA are a central component of the military’s digital transformation efforts. For example, the US Marine Depot Maintenance Command (MDMC) has recently employed Microsoft Power Apps and robotic process automation to reduce the need for manual labor and make daily operations more efficient. This focus on DPA and RPA has led to time savings, with the MDMC reducing receipt processing times for each item from six minutes to around 10 seconds.

Alongside making receipt processing more efficient, DPA and RPA efforts can streamline the following types of military processes:

 1. Personnel Management

With around 1.3 million active-duty troops and 762,000 reserve troops, the U.S. military has to have efficient personnel management processes. As part of a larger DPA initiative, the military could use RPAs to automate administration, such as performance evaluations, leave requests, and personnel updates. The use of process automation software to handle routine personnel management tasks enables staff to receive information faster and better manage personnel.

2. Mission Planning and Execution

While planning and executing missions still requires a great deal of human involvement, DPA initiatives can still be helpful. The Command Post of the Future (CFOF) is a prime example of military software that automates data entry and analysis processes for operators planning a mission. Automating these processes in a single platform allows CFOF to increase planning efficiency, reduce human error, and improve mission readiness within military operations—all of which support DPA initiatives in the military.

During mission execution, CPOF allows operators to receive and visualize data more easily. For example, an RPA could be tasked with automatically gathering a specific kind of data, with the newly inputted data then displayed to an operator in an easy-to-understand form (e.g., displaying data on a digital map). As a result, CPOF and other DPA initiatives allow operators to more effectively plan an operation, focus on their most important tasks during mission execution, and make better-informed decisions. 

3. Data Entry

Data entry is essential to the success of many defense organizations, but it’s not the most glamorous job in the military and can take lots of time to complete. RPAs speed up these repetitive processes with bots that capture and input data. Besides making data entry faster, RPAs designed for data capture and entry can eliminate human error during input, improving overall data accuracy. DPA can ensure that the data inputted by an RPA is promptly shared with the right teams in a format they can easily understand.

4. Logistics

Whether military personnel are in the field or on base, they need the right equipment and supplies to do their job properly. DPA initiatives that focus on optimizing logistics will employ process automation software for various tasks, such as supply chain tracking, inventory management, and procurement.

As part of a larger DPA initiative, the U.S. Marine Corps established a smart hub in Albany, Georgia, to better automate logistical tasks. Due to this smart hub’s success, the military is further investing in smart depots that utilize 5G networking to streamline logistics and supply chain operations. Automation at these facilities allows the military to process inventory in only minutes instead of hours, better track inventories, and perform faster audits. 

5. Cybersecurity

As Admiral James A. Winnefeld Jr. argues, human error is the major cybersecurity risk, and DPAs focused on cybersecurity can help reduce these risks while making security processes more efficient. For example, the Assured Compliance Assessment Solution (ACAS) is a set of automated tools used by the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) for vulnerability scanning and risk assessment. These automated tools also generate detailed reports that highlight vulnerabilities, ensuring staff can focus on fixing the vulnerabilities rather than having to find them manually.

How Can Collaboration Platforms Assist With DPA?

Whether through native tools or integrations, collaboration platforms allow users to automate many processes and work toward DPA for many communication tasks. While all military communications can’t (and shouldn’t) be automated, a collaboration platform can help move the military closer to DPA in their communication and collaboration processes.

Many actions on a collaboration platform can be automated to streamline communications and other tasks. For example, a platform like Mattermost is designed for operational workflows structured around checklist-based process automation. Playbooks from Mattermost also include automated triggers and actions to streamline repetitive tasks. Additionally, the platform includes automated source code reviews for improved cybersecurity.

Alongside the native automation features that a platform like Mattermost offers, it can integrate well with many no-code automation platforms. For example, no-code automation platforms like n8n, Zapier, and Make can all be integrated into Mattermost without difficulty. 

With these platforms integrated into the collaboration platform, teams can ensure that any opened tickets in Zendesk are automatically set to specific channels, alerting team members and encouraging collaboration. You could also automate workflows and other complex processes while determining automatic actions software should take based on specific events. 

Mattermost: Supporting the DoD’s Robot Process Automation & Digital Process Automation Goals

As a self-hostable collaboration platform relied on by the U.S. Air Force, Mattermost can support the DoD’s DPA initiatives. With Mattermost’s automation tools, centralized platform, and robust cybersecurity features, DoD can streamline workflows, enhance productivity, and securely manage data on our platform. 

Learn more about how Mattermost can help the U.S. defense industry meet DPA goals and achieve decision advantage today.