Developing Plans For The BLM

The Bureau of Land Management is an agency within the United States Department of the Interior responsible for administering public lands. The Systems Engineering and Technical Assistance (SETA) contract exists to bring in a true engineering discipline to the BLM. It was expected to encompass all Advisory and Assistance Services level support for IT related requirements for the BLM Division of Information Resources Management and direct support of Mission Programs. In particular, the Mineral Land Record System (MLRS) investment is designed to provide the data and functionality needed to give BLM land managers state-of-the-art tools to make informed land use decisions that will withstand public and legal scrutiny. Xentity was contracted to develop assessment, requirements, and CONOPS that integrated the full lifecycle of energy and minerals with planning, analysis, permitting, leasing, spatial workflow analysis, and National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) compliance. 

Talking Strategy and Requirements For the MLRS

The objective of the Minerals and Lands Reporting System (MLRS) project is the development of a modern system. One that employed automated business flows. It will also enable the storage and retrieval of public land and mineral records which document the rights and interest of the U.S. in the form of electronic documents and metadata to include geospatial references. The end result, as mentioned before, was the provision of the data and functionality. Consequently, this gave BLM land managers state-of-the-art tools needed to make informed land use decisions that will withstand public and legal scrutiny. However, the BLM was in need of support in their planning phase of the MLRS project. Also, several other task orders required the same. Furthermore, many of these tasks encompassed organizational policy development; decision-making; architecture, analysis, and assessment; management and administration; program and/or project management and administration; or R&D activities.

For these task orders, Xentity created RFP Requirements for major implementation. This included analyzing entire program GIS needs, work products raster, vector, and cartographic product needs; analyzed enterprise architecture and infrastructure to support plan; Designing specification, requirements, schedule, scope, architecture, and implementation plan; and enumerating workflows, process, data and screens. Xentity also provided solutions in various task orders pertaining to the BLM SETA. Such task orders included supporting the maintenance of the BLM’s land records system. Also, this provided easy access to accurate, reliable, and up-to-date land status records and an interface that enforces data validation. Xentity also helped ASRC Federal (Vistronix sub-division) with the SETA Mission Program. They did this by introducing our assessment methods to help in the concept of operations (CONOPS) development, business analysis, and workshop blend. 

The Development of a Strategy that Integrates the Lifecycle of Energy and Minerals

The biggest outcome of these efforts was the development of assessment, requirements, and CONOPS. They integrated the full lifecycle of energy and minerals within the strategy. They also integrated planning, analysis, permitting, leasing, spatial workflow analysis, and requirements outlined by the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). These covered the scope of all fluids and solids for energy and non-energy for all of the BLM across national, state, and field offices for over 247 million acres of federal surface estate and 700 million acres of subsurface mineral estate. Also, this is particularly notable as it was a challenge for the BLM since the early 90s. We at Xentity often find ourselves contracted to efforts involving natural resources in some way. Check out some of our projects with the US Geological Survey (USGS) or the US Forest Service (USFS) on our projects page to learn more.