Postal Service IG hunts for new data mining tools

The U.S. Postal Service’s inspector general wants to add to its repertoire of oversight tools and wonders what industry can deliver.

Over the last four years, the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) has deployed several risk assessment tools that proactively pinpoint vulnerabilities in problems areas, such as contract and financial fraud.

The OIG’s Countermeasures and Performance Evaluations team wants more of those tools to help in mining data.

“With the ongoing challenges the Postal Service faces, improving the OIG’s capabilities to use innovative tools, technologies, and methodologies to collect and analyze large volumes of complex data will help ensure that our work is of greatest value to the Postal Service,” according to a request for information released Dec. 30.

As fast the IT industry evolves, CAPE officials want to know what services companies can provide for data analytics, data discovery, predictive modeling and visualization techniques. The point is to find how these approaches can aid in conducting complex investigations, audits and assessing efficiencies in operations. For instance, the OIG is interested new ways to extract and analyze data, such as social media and audio and video sources, as well as examine complex data sets to discover patterns and find emerging and future trends.

Responses are due Jan. 30.