SAVE Award 2011 Ideas

Each employee was recently given TWO monitor screen wipers with the Electronic Records Express logo on them. This is a waste of money. Even though each employee has two monitors, one screen wiper would have been more than ample. I struggle with the fact that we wasted the money on making these in the first place, but to give each employee TWO seems wasteful. I wish there was a way to upload a picture of this silly novelty.... more »

Many agencies are urging citizens to utilize web-based applications to apply for benefits and receive services. These tools can provide timely service at reduced costs. Yet many of the citizens that need these services lack access to computers, or do not understand how to access these various sites/applications. I am suggesting creating computer centers in various public locations (malls, libraries) that provide desktop... more »

When new computer equipment is bought to refresh old equipment, systems are purchased with a license for a windows operating sytem. When IT departments recieve the systems we erase the current drive and put a different licensed operating system on the computer. We purchase at least 2 operating systems licenses per computer. If we were to purchase computers with no operating system the government could potentially save... more »

Clean dust out of computer heat sinks. Run defragmentation and error check programs on hard drives.

 

My agency’s computer systems are grinding to a halt while we wait for new systems (and corresponding funding). New life can be breathed into existing system by performing simple common sense maintenance. CPU power can be improved by simply cleaning out six years worth of dust from the CPU heat sink.

Currently, the U.S. government spends in excess of $1 billion annually to license software -- software that produces documents that are difficult to access after a few years because the new version of the software often doesn't work with the older documents. Since the document formats are proprietary, we have no way to access these documents other than by maintaining the unsupported older software. This has made transparency... more »

The Energy Information Institute estimates that 10% of average electric bill pays for are not being used, but that percentage could be higher if computers, laptops and other equipment are left on or in standby mode. A simple yet effective solution would be to replace current dumb power strips with smart power strips that can sense and auto shutoff when attached computers and devices are in off state. To implement this... more »

Our Information Management Office requires us to leave our computers on when not in use regardless of the amount of time the computer is left idle. I suggest ALL unused equipment be shut down unless absolutely necessary for program updates. At the very least the monitors could be turned off. This would save energy, extend the life of the equipment and reduce the amount of air conditioning.

Having all Federal computers powered and online 24 hours a day is an unreasonable waste of energy and dollars. Computer maintenance and updates can be scheduled, or computers can be powered down for a portion of the week (e.g. Thursday through Monday) after hours. Furthermore, an offline computer cannot be hacked - saving energy and increasing information security. This can be adopted today, at no cost.

Is it too much to ask for databases to update each other? Lets start with TSP. How about TSP and EBIS talk to each. They can be friends go out to lunch, take walks in the park. Just have friendly chats. There are thousands of gov't computer systems that should exhange information, but don't. Like examples of mailing social security checks to people in prison, or social security thinking you have died. Thinking about... more »

Recently, people who want to telework were assigned individual Dell laptops to use, rather than using a client to log in from a person computer.

I understand that this is for security purposes, but the fact is these computers are so slow and outdated that they make teleworking a waste of time. They take up to 30 minutes to turn on and connect, grind to a halt when accessing the remote desktop, and crash often.

Some... more »

Shut down computer monitors during off hours. The average monitor uses 55 watts per hour. If the average off time was ten hours then: That would be 550 watts a day, 17050 watts a month, 200,750 watts a year that is wasted. If you time that by $.13 per Kwh, that is $26.10 per monitor a year. That is a lot of money throughout the US. Just on my base alone we can save $17829.82 a year.

Working at FEMA, we process disaster applicant information. Many times this assistance is delayed because we are waiting to verify information. One piece of information that affects a large number of applicants is their insurance information. Can we have a way that their insurance settlement information populate our computer system with this information? Can we have IRS populate their income, have their employer information... more »

Currently, each military organization I have worked for has a single set of standards and configuration for government computers. To protect integrity of government systems, this seems a very sensible thing to do. However, there is a very real cost to this level of security for all operations requiring use of government computers. And not all uses require the same level of security. A natural solution would be to... more »

I have 2 computers at my desk which are my NMCI machine and my RDT&E machine and both are unclassified. They can be easily consolidated into me having only 1 computer at my desk. The NMCI seat costs government a lot of money to provide for me and all I use the computer for is e-mail, and it also has a CAC card slot so that I can use it for websites that require a CAC card access. My RDT&E is where I do all my software... more »

Create a government operating system using open source software. Based on Linux or BSD. The cost savings for the Army alone is about $85M+ per year for Windows, I dont what more for MS Office, Anti-virus etc. A standard desktop with office suite, internet browser, anti-virus, PDF, disc burning etc is easily attainable with open source. There are plenty of Linux Distro's and several BSD based that prove the point.... more »