RPA implementation is simple if you’ve got a clear and thorough roadmap. Generally, RPA deployments take less than two months. This includes the time necessary to configure, test, and send RPA robots into manufacturing.
In this first article, we will present the first 6.
- Identify procedures that will yield the greatest benefits
- Select procedures that can be easily automated
- Get team and management buy
- Convince other business components
- Understand the procedure
- Enhance the process
Identify procedures that will yield the greatest benefits
To maximize the effects of automation, identify the most impactful processes. The procedures tend to be:
- Affecting both price and earnings: Most impactful processes are costly and affect customers. Such procedures are good candidates for RPA implementation if they can be automated.
- High quantity: One of the important advantages of RPA implementation is the reduction of human work. You ought to start automating your greatest volume processes first.
- Fault-tolerant: the bots trust the user interface (UI) to execute their tasks. They can make any errors because of UI changes or procedure changes. By way of instance, it makes sense to automate the invoice-to-pay procedure for most companies. However, payments over a certain value would have to be accepted by humans.
- Error-prone: The more manual errors in a procedure, the more benefits your business can get by automating such a procedure.
- Speed-sensitive: Any procedures that could delay the delivery of services to clients are good candidates for automation as automation may make procedures instantaneous.
- Requiring irregular labor: Processes with irregular labor demands force businesses to apply for peak demand that’s inefficient. RPA bots can quickly scale up or down, easily handling peak demand.
Process mining is another solution to identify the most appropriate processes to automate. By using the performance metrics, process mining tools can reveal automation rates and possible for companies.
Select procedures that can be easily automated with RPA
Such processes tend to be:
- Rules-based: RPA bots will need to be programmed and when the steps of this procedure can’t be programmed, then that procedure is not a candidate for automation.
- With few exceptions: This is very similar to the “rules-based” criteria above. But some procedures have numerous undocumented principles that even if they’re rules-based, it’s time-consuming to recognize all rules through interviews with domain experts. Such processes are bad candidates for automation.
- Company-specific: is it a process that all businesses undertake in the exact same manner or is it unique to your organization? Assembling an RPA system for cost auditing would be more expensive and less effective than simply using a solution built for such a procedure.
- Mature: Automating a process that’s changing every day is a waste of time since programmers will spend a lot of time on maintenance. Stable processes are good candidates for automation.
Finally, even if a procedure isn’t a good candidate for automation as a whole, it might possibly be divided into automatable sub-processes that yield big benefits when automated.
Get Team and Management Buy
Getting the management to buy
Knowing the processes that can be automated and potential benefits from automation, you can build a persuasive case for business leadership. The keywords are RPA, AI, and Return on Investment (ROI). The first 2 are topics that executives feel pressured to invest in nowadays. In terms of ROI, an executive should need to know the ROI in any investment.
Get the team to buy
Are you currently doing an in-house process or an outsourced process? If it’s an outsourced process, you’re essentially just earning savings and the team managing the outsourced process will probably be delighted to manage the automated procedure.
However, it’s a very different situation with an in-house team. Nobody wants to wake up one day and find that their job is redundant. It’s required to have an open and honest conversation with the employees about what automation will bring.
Convince other company units
IT/technology department is the main stakeholder as the IT department should be approving major tech buys from a technical standpoint.
Center of Excellence (CoE): Many organizations are establishing centers of excellence for RPA. CoEs are usually involved in RPA projects.
Data/Analytics: Bots leave traces for each action they complete. Working with data/analytics unit to make certain that robots produce valuable and user-friendly data can save RPA teams from a lot of headaches in the future.
HR: If RPA will play a significant role in your organization, it’s necessary to train the employees on the technology. This enables the corporation’s employees to be empowered to maintain present RPA applications and roll-out new apps.
Understand the Procedure
Processes can be understood by speaking with the operators who run the procedure but relying solely on this approach can be:
- Pricey – speaking with them takes time
- Error-prone – People have imperfect memories and are prone to numerous cognitive biases
An alternative is to combine the talks with analysis derived from process exploration. Process mining enables businesses to analyze their logs to comprehend real-life procedure flows. By utilizing real-time information and event logs, process mining applications indicate the real processes in order to identify bottlenecks, unnecessary measures, and supply factual insights.
Enhance the process
Processes evolve as a result of regulatory pressures and market pressures. Therefore, most processes have significant potential for advancement.
Before proceeding with the RPA implementation, it is worthwhile to look for improvements in the process as process improvements can
- Simplify the procedure
- Make it more understandable therefore reducing the Essential programming and auditing effort
- Enhance customer experience
Next time, we will have a look at the last 6 steps for the perfect RPA implementation.
Meanwhile, if you need more information, contact us!