REI Systems is relentlessly committed to safeguarding the American people, our homeland, and ensuring we are helping improve the lives of citizens. Security agencies help America face threats from foreign assaults, natural disasters, physical and digital infrastructure attacks, and domestic terrorism. The threats can happen quickly, and the repercussions can be severe and affect millions of American lives. Security agencies need to respond swiftly, decisively, and effectively. Having the right technology to respond to a myriad of threats is critical. Our partnership with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to achieve this goal has been long and successful. We provided technical solutions that:
- Help facilitate the lawful immigration process
- Use artificial intelligence to save lives after a natural disaster
- Harness a data analytics tool that delivers insight into what mission areas need resources based on risk levels
- Manage a portfolio of businesses which offer new capabilities that protect the homeland
We offer our full suite of services to DHS including application modernization, grants management systems development, data analytics, and advisory services. Our success stories below offer details about the technology, innovation, services, and impact our partnership has achieved over the past 20 years to advance DHS’s mission.
Partner Success Stories
APPLICATION MODERNIZATION
Electronic Immigration System (ELIS) – USCIS
US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) sought REI’s help to modernize ELIS, a case management system that collects, tracks, and supports the adjudication of one million immigration benefit applications annually, including applications for citizenship, permanent residency, asylum, and other benefits. Using a “try-before-you-commit” acquisition approach, USCIS asked REI to provide two agile teams initially. Upon seeing immediate positive results, USCIS quickly asked REI to increase support from the initial two teams up to ten teams that provide DevSecOps software development, cloud engineering, and UI/UX design. REI teams helped USCIS significantly improve its business efficiency, reducing time spent by adjudicators on each case—thus allowing USCIS to process 19% more applications using the same staffing resources. In addition to business efficiency, we have helped USCIS improve the pace of technical innovation and reduce costs for application development, for example by using DevSecOps to improve coding efficiency by over 25%.
GRANTS MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS/APPLICATION MODERNIZATION
NEMIS, EMMI, AND EADIS — FEMA
REI is helping modernize the National Emergency Management Information System -Emergency Coordination (NEMIS-EC) application, which The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) uses to manage emergency and disaster relief operations. NEMIS-EC helps FEMA in tracking incidents such as the COVID-19 pandemic across states and territories and supports the launch of FEMA financial systems to begin granting funds. REI provides planning, development, and implementation services in support of emergency coordination and incident management mission requirements. REI also helped modernize the Emergency Management Mission Integrated Environment (EMMIE), which automated grant business processes that support public agencies (states, local, territorial, and tribal governments) across both non-disaster and disaster grant programs, consolidating more than 24 disaster-focused grants programs into one web-based application to reduce the burden on grant recipients, streamline processes, and strengthen compliance. Finally, for more than ten years, REI supported FEMA’s Enterprise Applications Development Integration and Sustainment (EADIS) program to gradually transform the Agency’s IT infrastructure from a siloed set of applications utilizing multiple platforms, standards, and hosting environments to one unified IT architecture.
Electronic Handbooks — DHS Science & Technology
REI modernized, maintained, and operated the Electronic Handbook system used by the DHS’ Science and Technology Directorate to identify, solicit, select and manage contracts and cooperative agreement recipients who offered innovative technologies that protected the American Homeland. Those awardees developed innovations for both DHS and commercial needs, related to chemical and biological weapon detection, cybersecurity, critical infrastructure resilience, and other DHS priorities. The tools and capabilities we developed attract offers of innovations from hundreds of firms.
DATA AND ANALYTICS
FEMA Data Exchange Program (DEX)
REI developed and helped pilot test the FEMA Data Exchange (FEMADex), a modern data analytics platform designed to replace the legacy Enterprise Data Warehouse (EDW) system. The FEMADex system is more scalable, resilient, and secure than EDW. Once it enters full production, it will be accessible to the enterprise, emergency management partners, and the public so those stakeholders have the data they need to make critical decisions in a timely manner before, during, and after disasters. FEMADex is a single, unified platform that ingests data from internal and external systems. It pulls structured, semi-structured, and unstructured data from source systems and integrates it into a central, secure environment that users can access to create their own workspaces.
To build the system, REI used a hybrid of opensource, COTS, and cloud-native services and utilized an Everything as a Service (XaaS) model to provide maximum flexibility for data storage, security, cleansing, standardization, and analytics. FEMADex is an Azure Cloud Data Platform designed for multicloud compatibility. It has domain-based data lakes and employs best-of-breed hybrid analytics tools. Throughout the project, REI used its Agile Delivery Framework approach to ensure value and capabilities were delivered to users rapidly and continuously.
FEMA Enterprise Analytics Support (EAS)
FEMA’s Office of Program and Policy Analysis (OPPA), Enterprise Analytics Division (EAD) partnered with REI to improve data analytics across the enterprise to better deliver critical information, tools, and insight to stakeholders helping people before, during and after a disaster. REI will support EAD’s mission requirements to encourage and enable FEMA to make data-driven decisions by empowering EAD’s analytics strength, building cross-cutting analytic capabilities, and supporting the transformation of data into actionable insights through maturing data infrastructure. REI will specifically strengthen FEMA’s ability to make data-driven decisions through cross-cutting enterprise analyses and analytic resources; advance FEMA’s analytics community via training, mentoring, and resource and capabilities sharing; mature data management; improve accessibility, transparency, and standardization of data and tools; and enhance stakeholder access modernized IT systems and streamlined business processes for better data management, data analytics, and reporting.
Management Cube — DHS Undersecretary for Management
REI developed and supported the implementation of a data warehouse and analytics tool to combine different types of data from multiple DHS components. The purpose was to allow DHS leadership to understand, for example, all DHS personnel, contracts, spending, and property assigned in a particular state/metropolitan area, a mission objective, or a program. This groundbreaking tool has provided DHS leaders with new and unparalleled insight to set priorities and make resource tradeoffs between mission objectives, funded programs, and geographies, allowing leadership to target the areas of highest risk and highest priority in protecting the homeland.
ADVISORY SERVICES
FEMA Technology Business Management (TBM) — DHS Headquarters/ Office of the CIO
REI conducted two pilots for a TBM Cost Model that would enhance cost transparency for IT spending at DHS headquarters. The purpose was to inform guidance for TBM implementation across the Department. Our team documented current state processes, developed templates and reports, and provided a capabilities assessment, along with findings and recommendations for improvements. We also developed a draft roadmap for TBM implementation and sample adoption plans to provide DHS with a foundation to begin their TBM implementation, enabling a multi-dimensional view of IT costs to ensure effective and efficient use of IT resources for maximum business value.
CONCLUSION
For nearly two decades, REI Systems has been a trusted technology partner to the Department of Homeland Security, delivering agile, secure, and forward-looking solutions that drive real mission impact. From streamlining immigration case management and modernizing disaster response systems to pioneering data platforms and enabling enterprise-wide analytics, our work helps DHS act decisively and effectively in the face of evolving threats.
REI’s commitment to Mindful Modernization™ ensures that every solution is purpose-built to align with DHS’s mission—helping protect the homeland, respond to crises, and serve the American people. As DHS continues to confront complex challenges, REI Systems stands ready with the technical expertise, innovative tools, and shared sense of purpose needed to advance the mission—now and into the future.
