How the U.S. Navy used automation to unlock 164,000 hours for mission-critical work

The United States (U.S.) Armed Forces is one of the largest organizations in the world, with the Navy alone employing a workforce more than a quarter million strong. Given its sheer size and massive number of processes and paperwork, the U.S. Navy had a unique opportunity to deploy automation on a large scale. 

At UiPath FORWARD VI in Las Vegas, Rebecca Young, Manager at Deloitte Consulting, and Nicole Otero discussed how UiPath and Deloitte have helped the Navy deploy automation throughout its sprawling organization, and what companies and other government agencies can learn from their journey. Otero is the Automation as a Service (AaaS) Center of Excellence (CoE) Lead at the Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Navy (ASN), Financial Management & Comptroller (FM&C). 

We’ve summarized the key takeaways from their conversations in this blog post, but you can also watch their conversation on theCUBE:

How collaboration unlocked automation success within the Navy 

Similar to other government agencies, the Navy has a higher bar for new technologies than many businesses. The most stringent security and data governance standards are non-negotiable. Moreover, getting more than 20,000 Navy commands on the same page is no easy task. 

These unique traits made Otero’s mission to “increase efficiency, cost savings, and improve operational capabilities” through automation a formidable one. Initially, automation was being used in a scattered fashion by various groups within the Navy. Otero quickly recognized the need to set up a center of excellence (CoE) to ensure coordination, share best practices, and prevent duplicate work across the agency. 

Nicole Otero (U.S. Navy) speaking at UiPath FORWARD VI

The Navy partnered with Deloitte to help centralize and expand its automation efforts. By focusing on transparency, collaboration, and their shared goals, the two organizations worked cohesively together as one team, transcending the traditional ‘government agency’ and ‘government contractor’ relationship. “We’re here for the same mission. And I think when you go into projects like that…you recognize together the bigger picture that you're trying to achieve,” said Young.  

Rather than coming up with an organization-wide automation strategy themselves, Otero and Young met with Navy leadership and data science staff to get their input. They even hosted office hours where Navy leaders could ask questions and provide feedback. “Engagement is absolutely key. We reached out to various Navy units encouraging them to participate in this transformative journey with us. This collaboration…is key, especially to overcoming a siloed development culture,” Otero said. 

Ultimately, with the help of the UiPath Business Automation Platform and Deloitte’s expertise, the Navy was able to redirect 164,000 labor hours into higher-value tasks, thanks to 360 automation projects backed by over 130 UiPath Robots.

These achievements wouldn’t have been possible without the synergistic partnership between the three organizations.

[Deloitte] can't do it without UiPath. UiPath can't do it without [Deloitte], but we can't do it without the Navy. So, it's…really presenting a team atmosphere that makes it so successful.

Rebecca Young, Manager, Deloitte Consulting

What can government agencies and businesses learn from the Navy’s automation journey? 

The Navy's automation journey offers valuable lessons and insights for government agencies and businesses looking to embark on their own automation initiatives. Here are some key takeaways:

Collaborate with stakeholders from the beginning 

As Otero and Young emphasized, the Navy's automation success wouldn’t have been possible without a strong emphasis on collaboration.  

Actively seeking input and feedback from a wide range of stakeholders—including end users, management, and IT staff—increases buy-in across the organization and helps tailor automation deployment to specific departmental needs. As Young said, “collaboration has been the cornerstone of our CoE's achievements.” 

Leadership support is crucial 

The unwavering support of senior Navy leadership played a pivotal role in driving its automation program forward. Otero emphasized that "having that support has been huge...they believe in the mission that we're doing...they're seeing the benefits for it." Strong backing from senior leaders provides the necessary funding, resources, and strategic alignment to propel automation initiatives forward.

Change management and employee engagement are mission-critical

A stamp of approval from senior leadership is vital, but engagement from other employees can’t be ignored. Otero’s team is in the process of standing up a citizen developer program, and they’re focused on transparency. While some people were initially concerned bots would take their jobs, Otero eased their concerns by reminding them that the bots can act as assistants, allowing them to take on higher-value work. She explained: “this is going to help you not do that data entry thing that you're doing so that you can take that information and do something more meaningful with it.” 

Young also highlighted the importance of change management. "Emphasizing benefits of automation through change management has been absolutely key...involving our workforce and emphasizing the benefits of automation, we can navigate this cultural shift more effectively."  

Rebecca Young (Deloitte Consulting) speaking at FORWARD VI

This begins with equipping citizen developers with the tools and training to fix their own problems. As Otero explained, doing so brings them into the automation journey and incentivizes citizen developers to show other employees what they can do.

[Getting] everybody more involved….naturally comes with bringing in women, bringing in younger people. And I think it's exciting because…you're getting kids right out of college and you're like, you can build a bot…It’s not like they're [just] doing a PowerPoint. They're doing some really cool tech stuff in the government. So, that's where I think it's exciting. I just think the work naturally is going to pull people in.  

Nicole Otero, AaaS CoE Lead, Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Navy (ASN), Financial Management & Comptroller (FM&C) 

Standardization leads to efficiency 

As they progressed along their automation journey, the Navy recognized the need for standardization across the organization. Young explained that initially, "each command was pursuing their own paths of automation, which resulted in a lack of standardization and coordination...we needed a centralized entity, a CoE, to serve as the driving force behind our automation initiatives." By creating guidelines for developers, defining quality control measures, and ensuring consistency in automation projects, the Navy was able to streamline processes and achieve greater efficiency.

Never stop innovating 

While its automation achievements are impressive, the Navy isn’t slowing down. Young and Otero have their eye on several AI capabilities within the UiPath Platform, such as UiPath Document Understanding, that their CoE can make further use of. 

Young emphasized the importance of this continuous innovation, stating that the Navy and Deloitte "will continue to explore and leverage emerging technologies such as AI and machine learning to further enhance the capabilities of our digital workforce."

A more efficient future ahead 

Going forward, other government agencies are set to benefit from the Navy’s learnings in automation.

We're not just enabling the [Navy], we're also…enabling the government to be better. The more you talk to everybody, we all have the same problems…It’s been really nice to be able to talk and share what we've done and know that we're going to make a difference…in other agencies. 

Nicole Otero, AaaS CoE Lead, Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Navy (ASN), Financial Management & Comptroller (FM&C) 

By prioritizing collaboration from the start and working with the right partners, organizations in the public and private sectors can follow the Navy’s blueprint for automation excellence.