In overseeing elections, native governments throughout the US are tasked with not solely administering and counting votes however verifying the outcomes — a course of that has taken on heightened significance lately on account of extra intense election scrutiny.

Metropolis and County of San Francisco

The vote verification course of requires an intensive evaluate of election outcomes to reveal they’re correct, and may embody checking for errors or irregularities, similar to incorrect ballet counts or points with voting machines, in addition to fraud that would undermine election integrity.

A risk-limiting audit (RLA) is one audit kind used for election verification. RLAs decide exactly how a lot hand-counting is important to substantiate election outcomes to a given degree of confidence. For instance, the nearer the competition, the extra ballots that should be examined.

To totally automate its RLA course of, the San Francisco Division of Elections partnered with the San Francisco Division of Know-how. Linda Gerull, CIO for the Metropolis and County of San Francisco, and her workforce used a mix of in-house software program, open-source programming, and skilled algorithms to create an RLA platform able to routinely auditing 1000’s of votes on-demand to confirm outcomes. The platform can be able to auditing the town’s ranked-choice voting contests, making it the primary such platform able to doing so.

San Francisco’s IT effort “gives higher transparency to the general public, minimizes human bias, and saves time,” Gerull says. “In more and more politicized occasions, simply performing RLAs can present a measure of confidence to the voter that elections are being run correctly.”

For a take a look at how different CIO 100 Award winners are supporting honest elections, see “Los Angeles IT secures the vote with open supply and the cloud.”

AI avatar helps CSN higher have interaction college students

Group: School of Southern Nevada

Venture: Digital President Zaragoza

IT Chief: Mugunth Vaithylingam, CIO

The School of Southern Nevada turned to cutting-edge expertise — an avatar named Digital President Zaragoza (DPZ) and primarily based on the real-life CSN president — to deal with academia’s longstanding want to interact college students and enhance their instructional expertise.

School of Southern Nevada

Groups overseen by CSN CIO Mugunth Vaithylingam mixed customized AI visuals, voice, and content material to create this first-of-its-kind customized avatar, which is deployed and rendered from an online browser utilizing client-side CPUs. The scalable avatar can have tons of of 1000’s of conversations individually and concurrently, and is very customizable and interactive in real-time, thereby offering an immersive expertise for every person.

Moreover, AI capabilities allow the avatar to adapt to varied situations, reply to person enter, and supply a human-like interplay. For instance, it will probably study and use college students’ names and supply customized info.

DPZ captures, ingests, organizes, and acts on disparate info seamlessly, permitting for frictionless model interplay throughout all pupil touchpoints. Furthermore, it will probably talk with college students by way of net and cellular gadgets.

“It helps us handle the challenges that giant group schools face in offering real-time assist and steerage to college students,” Vaithylingam says. “Particularly in an period when cellular connectedness is ubiquitous, our present era of scholars want the flexibility to get assist and have someplace to go once they really feel overwhelmed proper from the place they’re.”

Vaithylingam provides: “I’m pleased with the truth that we had been in a position to create a instrument that has the potential to make an actual distinction within the lives of scholars.”

With the avatar deployed, CSN officers plan to measure whether or not Digital President Zaragoza improves pupil engagement, studying outcomes, pupil satisfaction, retention, and accessibility, along with producing time and prices financial savings.

Low cost Tire re-engineers its buyer expertise

Group: Low cost Tire

Venture: Low cost Tire Pit Move

IT Chief: Gary Desai, EVP and CIO

Low cost Tire’s Pit Move is a brand new retailer idea that makes use of expertise to place the client on the heart of the tire-buying expertise — and within the course of additionally brings worth to staff and the corporate itself.

Gary Desai and Tom Williams / Low cost Tire

Pit Move retailer prospects can order tires on-line, schedule an set up appointment, after which full the sale and set up course of by way of a drive-through lane.

The applied sciences powering this new buyer journey embody tire scanners and cameras that consider tire tread depth and situation; digital shows that information prospects into particular work bays and supply work updates; and handheld gadgets that allow retailer associates to speak completion of companies.

Revised back-store purposes assist this digital-first method.

To ship this transformative product, EVP and CIO Man Desai targeted on growing a minimal viable mission and fostering cross-functional collaboration, mobilizing a workforce that leveraged user-centered design to develop new archetypes, personas, and “to-be” journey flows.

The launch of the primary Pit Move retailer, situated within the Atlanta space, represents a pivot from a conventional brick-and-mortar retailer to a strong omnichannel model, enabling Low cost Tire to offer a extra seamless, intuitive buyer expertise with clever workflows that minimize down on retailer go to occasions.

The mission additionally ensures technicians’ consolation and security as they service prospects. And it yields a number of enterprise metric enhancements, similar to limiting surplus stock. Furthermore, Pit Move has helped form the corporate’s roadmap for its future, says Chris Chapman, firm vp of IT retailer expertise at Low cost Tire.

“First, it exhibits that Low cost Tire is prepared to spend money on artistic and revolutionary new methods to interact with our prospects. Second, this new retailer mannequin will enable Low cost Tire to enter markets/areas the place land and development prices are at a premium and nonetheless present our prospects with a world-class expertise,” Chapman says.

For extra about Low cost Tire’s Pit Move mission, see “Low cost Tire tunes IT to reinvent buyer expertise.”

US DoT digitizes automobile security inspections

Group: Federal Motor Provider Security Administration, US Division of Transportation

Venture: SafeSpect: Digitizing Security Inspections of Industrial Autos

IT Chief: Pavan Pidugu, CTO

In collaboration with state companions, the Federal Motor Provider Security Administration (FMCSA) conducts roughly 3.5 million automobile inspections throughout the US yearly.

US Division of Transportation

For a few years, the 18,000 security and legislation enforcement officers conducting these inspections needed to navigate 9 separate purposes, normally whereas working within the discipline, typically in conjunction with a freeway — a state of affairs FMCSA officers acknowledged was ripe for digital transformation and an improved worker expertise.

“We needed to offer a safer approach for security enforcements,” says FMCSA CTO Pavan Pidugu, who, working with the CIO and FMCSA management, targeted on delivering a brand new inspection system shortly.

Starting with information-gathering periods with stakeholders to outline the issues and desires, the Workplace of the CTO (OCTO) leveraged human-centered design rules and agile growth rules to pilot SafeSpect inside 5 months of the mission kickoff date.

SafeSpect is the one device-agnostic web-based inspection platform available in the market that works with or with out connectivity. It contains a single pane of view into all related details about the motor service, automobile, and driver being inspected, thereby enabling inspectors to make fast data-driven selections.

Furthermore, the applying movement and logic streamline info seize by eliminating redundancy and conflicts. It additionally permits inspectors to tailor the expertise to their utilization, carry an enter machine to the purpose of inspection to get rid of transcription errors, and enter info with minimal keystrokes to reduce errors and inconsistencies.

Throughout the pilot, the SafeSpect workforce noticed a 60% enchancment in time to finish and submit a Stage 3 inspection for approval.

OCTO continues so as to add new capabilities and options to SafeSpect, and Pidugu says his workplace is exploring whether or not SafeSpect may very well be used for different kinds of inspections.

Generac transforms its enterprise with information

Group: Generac Energy Techniques

Venture: PowerInsights

IT Chief: Tim Dickson, CIO

After arriving at Generac Energy Techniques as its new CIO, Tim Dickson hosted the corporate’s first-ever hackathon to upskill IT staff and consider the workforce. However the occasion yielded a fair larger end in type of PowerInsights, an interactive geospatial visualization, analytics, and AI instrument that helps the corporate determine potential new prospects and supply different new market alternatives.

Generac Energy Techniques

PowerInsights is displayed on an 85-inch touch-screen TV within the firm’s essential foyer, permitting staff, executives, and guests (together with prospects) to see and work together with the info. It will possibly, for instance, present the place there’s idle energy {that a} buyer (similar to a utility) may wish to promote, and it additionally gives the corporate’s vendor community with a holistic view of their enterprise and alternatives to broaden.

The mission has been transformative for Generac’s enterprise.

“PowerInsights has helped the corporate evolve from a generator producer into an vitality expertise options supplier,” Dickson says.

As a part of the hackathon, the IT workforce sought to realize three issues: to combination the corporate’s information into an enterprise information platform; to construct an API that would supply enterprise entry to that information; and to develop a machine studying algorithm to offer insights on prime of the aggregated IoT information.

The hackathon’s preliminary prototype proved all that was, certainly, technically attainable, and it quickly developed into a proper program that produced PowerInsights.

Along with delivering full visibility of belongings throughout the corporate, PowerInsights additionally options an AI mannequin referred to as PowerScore, which helps the corporate’s gross sales and advertising groups goal potential prospects with campaigns and promotions. Its two different AI fashions, Alternative Rating and Utility Rating, present further insights about market alternatives.

For a deeper take a look at PowerInsights, see “Generac powers enterprise transformation with information, AI.”

Nice Wolf Resorts goes digital to boost visitor expertise

Group: Nice Wolf Resorts

Venture: Venture Darwin

IT Chief: Ramki Srinivasan, CDIO

Nice Wolf Resorts skilled important development through the previous 5 years, with the corporate increasing its footprint in addition to the variety of company it hosts. The corporate expects that appreciable charge of development to its waterpark-themed resorts to proceed over the following three years.

Nice Wolf Resorts

In response, IT — working collaboratively with operations and different purposeful teams — created a multipronged initiative aimed toward delivering extra digital experiences for each company and staff.

The initiative’s deliverables embody new on-site kiosks in addition to new and redesigned cellular capabilities to offer contactless companies, similar to digital check-in and meals ordering.

One other deliverable makes use of synthetic intelligence to assist the corporate’s lifeguards; right here, IT delivered cameras that use AI to observe waterparks and determine potential issues of safety, with the aim of additional enhancing guard response occasions.

IT additionally deployed robotic course of automation (RPA) and modernized handbook legacy workflows by way of a migration to cloud platforms.

Chief Digital and Data Officer Ramki Srinivasan says Venture Darwin targeted on enabling staff “to deal with company extra successfully and effectively” whereas additionally enhancing the expertise for employees, too.

“We’re making a variety of progress addressing these targets,” he says, noting that the mission has helped minimize prices and enhance income, too.

For instance, the brand new cellular food-ordering capabilities are delivering verify sizes 50% over walk-in orders. And automation has helped Nice Wolf redeploy associates to concentrate on extra value-added efforts, with future workflow automation set to speed up that technique additional.

Srinivasan says the initiative is crucial to firm’s development aims, too. The mixture of automating workflows, including digital self-service capabilities, and modernizing legacy purposes means employees have been in a position to shed low-value handbook duties and may concentrate on higher-value ones. That not solely improves the client expertise however will increase employee effectivity. As Srinivasan explains: “We can’t have the expansion and scale that we’ve deliberate with out these enhancements.”

Machine studying helps Novant Well being enhance suicide prevention

Group: Novant Well being

Venture: Behavioral Well being Acuity Danger mannequin for suicide prevention by way of scientific interventions

IT Chief: Karen Hegarty, VP Cognitive Computing

With regards to suicide prevention, a key subject is figuring out sufferers in want. The Columbia-Suicide Severity Ranking Scale (C-SSRS), a handbook screening instrument that depends on a affected person’s willingness to precise having suicidal ideas, may be challenged on this space, and so the workforce at Novant Well being sought to develop a greater method to discovering potential suicidal ideation.

Novant Well being

Karen Hegarty, vp of cognitive computing at Novant Well being, and her workforce partnered with clinicians from psychological well being, emergency medication, and psychiatry to create an computerized and data-driven predictive mannequin that examines info from a affected person’s medical file to evaluate the chance of suicidal habits.

The Behavioral Well being Acuity Danger (BHAR) mannequin leverages a machine studying approach referred to as random forests, which may be natively hosted within the digital well being file and up to date in near-real time, with outcomes instantly obtainable to scientific workers.

“This work allows our care workforce to determine potential suicidal ideations and have interaction with the affected person in a significant and caring approach,” Hegarty says.

To construct the BHAR mannequin, the Novant Well being workforce used historic information from its digital well being information (EHR) system in addition to information from exterior sources.

The BHAR mannequin gives clinicians with a real-time evaluation of danger within the type of a share and color-coded low/medium/excessive vary, all of which is seen within the affected person’s EHR.

The tech workforce’s partnership with scientific groups helped construct belief within the mannequin’s accuracy and effectiveness amongst caregivers. And that partnership together with a human-centered method to implementing BHAR ensured that the instrument match inside scientific workflows.

“The work paid off, and we’re seeing an actual influence on our sufferers, their care, and their lives,” Hegarty says, noting that Novant Well being plans to share the mannequin in order that different healthcare techniques can implement it to profit their sufferers.

Oshkosh tracks manufacturing belongings with IoT

Group: Oshkosh Corp.

Venture: Enhancing Manufacturing Effectivity by way of IoT Enabled Asset Monitoring

IT Chief: Anu Khare, SVP & CIO

Oshkosh Corp., maker of specialty autos and entry gear, had challenges in its capacity to find elements, autos, and tooling — challenges that created a barrier to higher manufacturing effectivity.

Anu Khare / Oshkosh Corp.

To deal with that downside, Oshkosh IT partnered with manufacturing to construct and implement an IoT-enabled asset-tracking functionality that permits real-time identification of crucial instruments, elements, and gear in 3D house with accuracy inside 12 inches. The platform, which may additionally monitor asset motion over time to tell material-flow enhancements, works by way of a grid of wi-fi Bluetooth satellite tv for pc nodes put in inside Oshkosh’s manufacturing facility, and every of the corporate’s belongings are tagged with Bluetooth transmitters.

The answer operates just like a GPS system, however it’s localized inside the store ground, is safer, makes use of much less vitality, and prices lower than GPS.

Manufacturing workforce members can see the geolocation of any half, instrument, gear, or automobile with a visible illustration of its coordinate in 3D house. An interactive dashboard with cellular capabilities allows workforce members to view satellite tv for pc well being, every tagged asset with real-time location on the specified website, and heatmap information collected over a specified time vary.

The system successfully automates 3,750 hours yearly in simply one among Oshkosh’s amenities, time beforehand spent looking for crucial instruments and elements, says Anu Khare, senior vp and CIO. That in flip permits employees “to concentrate on the manufacturing, leading to improved effectivity,” he provides.

Moreover, the system’s machine studying fashions ship further worth by scanning asset location information for material-flow optimization.

The corporate continues to scale its use of this asset-tracking system and sees alternatives to make use of the expertise in different areas of its operations.

“We’re solely scratching the floor of the instrument’s capabilities,” Khare provides.

Reed Smith calls on AI to assist form authorized groups

Group: Reed Smith

Venture: Sensible Resourcing

IT Chief: Steven W. Agnoli, CIO

Worldwide legislation agency Reed Smith needed to make sure that it was deploying the precise assets to the precise jobs in probably the most environment friendly method to fulfill consumer wants.

Reed Smith

It additionally needed to effectively seize its attorneys’ experience. And it sought to enhance its capacity to make sure that numerous lawyer groups can be fielded and profitable in resolving consumer’s authorized points.

To fulfill these aims, Reed Smith’s expertise workforce created Sensible Resourcing, which makes use of industry-leading processes and AI to offer choice assist for staffing consumer engagements.

Sensible Resourcing presents a holistic view into lawyer suitability for a specific piece of labor and gives a clearer understanding of areas of utilization weak spot, abilities development wants, and resourcing enhancements, says agency CIO Steven W. Agnoli.

“Sensible Resourcing makes info assortment, validation, and sharing simple, and it brings a degree of knowledge accuracy, information, and reporting that was not beforehand attainable,” he provides.

Sensible Resourcing contains in-house developed expertise for allocating and monitoring work requests, figuring out abilities growth areas, and calculating range and inclusion metrics. Its AI mannequin makes use of a mix of authorized matter information and time labored to foretell lawyer expertise ranges.

Advantages from the Sensible Resourcing mission embody elevated income on account of faster staffing of engagements with extra applicable assets, elevated accuracy within the agency’s efforts to workers extra numerous consumer work groups and its capacity to report progress on staffing numerous groups to shoppers.

The mission additionally introduced a heightened consciousness of the IT division’s capacity to leverage rising tech for the agency’s profit, Agnoli says, including, “The mission has reimagined how groups of attorneys, directors, and technologists work collectively to carry revolutionary thought to long-established processes.”

Extra US CIO 100 Award winners

The next articles present an in-depth take a look at these and extra of our 2023 US CIO 100 Award profitable tasks:

• Atlantic Well being System: “Atlantic Well being streamlines insurance coverage authorization with clever automation”
  Sunil Dadlani, Chief Data & Transformation Officer, CISO
• Avnet: “How Avnet accelerates its product design course of”
  Max Chan, CIO
• Belcorp: “Belcorp reimagines R&D with AI”
  Venkat Gopalan, Chief Digital, Information & Know-how Officer
• CareSource: “How CareSource IT is addressing information interoperability challenges in healthcare”
  Devon Valencia, CIO
• CarMax: “CarMax drives enterprise worth with GPT-3.5”
  Shamim Mohammad, EVP and Chief Data and Know-how Officer
• Cherokee Nation: “Cherokee Nation empowers its residents with IT”
  Paula Starr, CIO
• Low cost Tire: “Low cost Tire tunes IT to reinvent buyer expertise”
  Gary Desai, EVP and CIO
• Dow: “Dow turns to AI to speed up chemical search”
  Nathan Wilmot, IT Director of Information Consumer Partnerships
• Eastman: “How IT does enterprise at Eastman”
  Aldo Noseda, CIO
• Generac: “Generac powers enterprise transformation with information, AI”
  Tim Dickson, CIO
• Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk: “Los Angeles IT secures the vote with open supply and the cloud”
  Aman Bhullar, CIO
• Miami College: “Invoking IT to assist revitalize Indigenous languages susceptible to extinction”
  David Seidl, VP of IT & CIO
• PepsiCo: “PepsiCo IT redefines direct-to-store enterprise mannequin success”
  Shyam Venkat, Sector CIO
• Pink Hat: “Pink Hat embraces hybrid cloud for inside IT”
  James Palermo, CIO
• Sysco: “Sysco’s recipe for development facilities on IT”
  Tom Peck, EVP and Chief Data and Digital Officer