FGIS: An EPPC Journey

LeRoy Capper Chief Innovation Officer
FGISonline

A portfolio of interconnected business applications 

modernizing operations, digitizing recordkeeping 

and increasing traceability within the national 

inspection and weighing system. 

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Official Standards

• Factors/Methods/Tests

• Commodity

– Grades

– Grading Limits

– Classing

• Rates/Fees

• Approved Equipment

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Authorizations

• Organizations

– Designations 

– Delegations

– Cooperators

– Official Service Points

• Equipment

– Checktest Results

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Licensing

• Licenses defined for particular 

commodities and functions

• Exams established to obtain 

particular license

• Multiple tests may be necessary 

to satisfy a particular exam. 

• Managed Question/answer 

pool. 

• Successful completion results in 

automatic addition of license to 

individual profile. 

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Service Delivery

• Inspection

• Weighing

• Certification

• Billing

• Volume Reporting

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Quality Management

• System Performance

• Individual Performance

• Opinions and Referees

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Distributed Platform

• FGISonline Distributed platform 

provides operational continuity 

for commodity loading 

operations

• Initially deployed in 2009

• FGIS has avoided dozens of 

outages since initial deployment 

without downtime. 

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Customer Focus

• Organizations register to obtain

an FGIS customer number.

• Records made available through 

a variety of channels

– Website

– Emailed twice daily

– Webservice

– Elevator View

• Individual record verification

• Exploring methods to validate and authorize interested parties access to 

information.

• Exploring options to meet stakeholder requests for centralized result 

and certification access.

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Modern & Secure 

• Successfully upgraded to the 

current Microsoft technology 

suite in April

• Security Guidelines established 

by National Institute of 

Standards & Technology 

• Independent 3rd party testing 

and verification 

• Active Authority to Operate 

(ATO) 

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EPPC 

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• Automation of information and work flow, integrating 

instrumentation and delivery of near-real time information to 

applicants

• Tailoring and enhancing business processes to support 

traceability from request through result, bill, certificate and 

report

• Common patterns to support monitoring and quality control

• Streamlining processes to increase efficiencies

EPPC: Elimination of Pens, 

Paper, and Calculators
EPPC / MyFGIS

• At a glance, users will be presented with information 

targeted to their organization, role and location:

 What I am doing today?

 How I am currently performing?

 What’s the status of the equipment where I am 

working?

 When do I review the collected information?
Benefits

• Greater customer access to 

information

• Reduce manual data entry & 

error potential

• Faster, more accurate certification

• Traceable billing line items

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Commitment to 

Continuity

• Commodities are moving 24x7x365

• We are on-site in many locations

• Internet Access not guaranteed. 

• Continuity of operations is 

paramount

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Every Minute Matters

• Customers use our results immediately 

(<30 seconds) to direct grain flow

• Cargo valued in the millions of dollars 

• Customer impact in the $10k’s/hour 

• Outage Resistant system design will 

allow fully offline operation, while 

providing near-real time information 

online when connectivity is available

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Why now?

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• Cost Avoidance

– Service Delivery errors - $112k/year

– Prefilling paper forms - $3.2 M/year

– Eliminating manual processes – $1.2 M/year

• Continue focus on improved customer service 

and stakeholder engagement

• Technology is available

– Blockchain / Microservices / Cloud / Mobile
Blockchain

• Exploring future for disconnected system

– only pending blockchain pilot at USDA in FY18

– support integrated instrumentation data collection

• USDA Blockchain Workshop – August 20, 2018

– Secretary Purdue focused on appropriate use

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Office/Organization 

Management

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• Upgrading Customer Information Management (CIM) 

• Enabling role/permission management

• Roles: Role Manager, Service Requester, Service 

Request Preparer, Certificate Viewer, Bill Viewer, 

Inspector, Manager

• Contractual Service Agreement management 

• Review license status, equipment status

• Service point request management
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Service 

Request
Workflow::Certificate Issuance

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Certificate previewed, confirmed by 

Customer after preparation and review
Traceable Inspection

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• All Samples will get an identifier/QR code

• Each portion will get an identifier/QR code

• Each inspection pan will get an identifier/QR code 
Versioning & Reporting

• Information will be locked, 

logged and auditable at the 

point of collection.

• Information collected will be 

rolled up and aggregated.

• Logs, Bills, Certificates and 

Reports will be automatically 

created.

• Near-real-time result delivery

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Upcoming

• Service Request

– Targeting Beta training 

environment available in early 

FY19

– Coordinating Production rollout 

for FY19

• Iterative functionality rollouts 

to establish workflow and add 

depth of service

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Automate Across, Add Depth
FGISonline Future

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Cloud

Reporting Database

Government Public Customer Authorization Inspection Certification Licensing Equipment Checktesting Billing Standards Sampling Weighing Testing Others... Service Requests

My FGIS Portal

Work Order Management

Monitoring Feed

Sync

Automated 

Weighing 

System

Distributed 

Architecture

Physical 

Equipment

Elevator 

view

Feed Feed Feed
Questions?

LeRoy.S.Capper@ams.usda.gov

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