There was a significant upfront outlay. I think it's been three years in development, with a significant amount of money and effort. For example, the team that works on this inside the Veterans Benefits Administration alone is over 200 people. In addition, there is an IT team that is dedicated to working on this, plus contractor support from another government agency, plus some commercial contractors.
This is a very large project, spanning many years. At this point it's a launched program, so the initial development dollars spending rate will start slowing down somewhat, and then we will field the improvements and develop that into a second, third, and fourth generation.
In terms of what we're saving, we can start right up front. I ran a regional office in San Juan, Puerto Rico, and I spent $1.5 million a year just mailing files around. Multiply that number times 55 offices. We're not shipping anymore because everything is electronic, so immediately I get a bump measured in tens of millions of dollars as a result of not shipping files around any longer.
The other side is that I'm starting to see improvements. I have my first measurements back from a two-hour rating in front of a rater, and I'm saving 17 minutes. You might look at that and say that's not so significant, but when you look at it being the equivalent of my hiring 17% more people, it's a significant number. We're just starting to see the savings from that program in the first generation, and we expect it to get much larger before this is over.