What is RPA?
RPA involves training a “bot” to complete repetitive, time-consuming tasks by interacting with applications through their user interfaces — pointing, clicking, and typing just as a human would. RPA bots can be used to take care of these kinds of tasks, removing strain on workers and also reducing errors because they execute the task exactly the same way each time. Even if you’ve never heard of RPA, chances are you’re already using it in your everyday life. If you order shoes online, you’ll probably get order updates and shipping notifications that track your parcel. These are often handled by RPA-based software, which can be programmed to systematically update customers on their order status. Likewise, if your office uses Dropbox, your documents are automatically saved and merged thanks to the power of RPA.
How RPA can benefit your industry
Robotic process automation (RPA) is enjoying the spotlight as the technology of the moment, and with good reason. It’s one of the most exciting new business technologies to emerge in recent years and is significantly changing how companies work. While there are many benefits to RPA, implementation best practices are still not yet widely understood – meaning many early adoptions fall short of expectations. Ernst & Young found that as many as 30-50% of initial RPA projects fail. This is generally attributed to misunderstandings about the technology or a company’s methodologies when applying RPA tools. The secret to a successful RPA implementation is to start small. Match the automation tool to the problem and create quick, impactful wins. From there, businesses can learn key lessons that will shape more ambitious projects in the future.
RPA benefits across various industries
RPA tools have been used successfully across a broad range of industries and sectors. There are multiple benefits of RPA to organizations of every size.
Benefits of RPA in Energy
Utilities are highly customer-centric, as individuals are dependent on these services every day. RPA helps companies manage these transactions efficiently and improve the customer experience. RPA can be used to validate meter readings in an efficient manner, which reduces human error and, in turn, customer complaints.
Benefits of RPA in Government
The use of RPA is becoming increasingly common within government agencies to reduce backlogs, improve throughput, and optimize compliance. As government agencies process large volumes of documents and data daily, RPA is ideal for freeing up employees to focus on higher-value aspects of their roles.
Benefits of RPA in Education
RPA tools can be used in enrollment processes to check application forms, validate documents, and assess student eligibility, as well as schedule meetings and update progress reports. RPA tools can extract students’ grades from databases enter it into relevant forms, and send reports out to parents.
Benefits of RPA in Finance
With the advancement of technology, the automation of the finance sector is an increasingly common reality in companies.
Error Minimization
Adopting RPA helps cut down expenses, as it reduces the losses caused by human errors. This minimization of errors, in fact, is a great advantage of RPA, since a system can perform repetitive and tiring tasks of endless & complex calculations without any problems.
Increased Productivity
Those who work in finance know that a good part of their workday is about filling out spreadsheets, completing accounts and checking that all items are organized.
Therefore, using software that automates part of this work means a direct increase in productivity, efficiency, and profitability.
Benefits of RPA in Insurance
RPA helps insurance companies to streamline their processes and enhance their ability to increase the client base with Service Satisfaction.
Streamlining Claims Processing
RPA eliminates manual processes such as sorting, data entry and validation. The claims processing becomes expedient, efficient and accurate.
Improved Regulatory Compliance
RPA accurate the data maintained with a log of actions. It provides the standard governance setup and tracking. It helps in monitoring compliance regulations through internal reviews on an ongoing basis.
Benefits of RPA in Healthcare
RPA in healthcare services is an interesting option for the control of administrative routines, decision making and management of drug stocks.
Paperless
Nowadays, through the internet, it is possible to access important information from anywhere. A good example of this concept is that of not being required to use papers.
Instead, all the documents can be shared over the cloud, which can speed up the care of several patients and avoid long queues in hospitals.
Health institutions generate considerable volumes of referrals and reports. Handling this amount of paper generates a lot of administrative, logistical and financial costs.
RPA in healthcare is a facilitator as it enables the standardization, cataloging and digital signature of the most frequently used documents.
Communication
RPA allows the centralized institutions to communicate with health operators in order to authorize or reject the performance of a certain procedure, be it drug-related, clinical or surgical.
With well-established communication and scheduling, services can be less laborious and more practical.
RPA can also help segregate different cases as urgency, emergency, outpatient treatment, hospitalizations, among others.
Benefits of RPA in Manufacturing
In manufacturing, automation is the process of integrating industrial machines and equipment to automatically perform tasks. The use of RPA improves productivity, security, and profitability.
Competitive Advantage
In order to survive in today’s global economy, companies must remain increasingly competitive. Time and again, RPA has given manufacturing companies the ability to stay on the same page or even get ahead of their competitors.
RPA is capable of providing consistent and repeatable results. When manufacturers use automation, they can effectively eliminate issues such as quality control, managing inventory levels, long-lasting jobs etc.
Accuracy and Remote Monitoring
Accuracy is one of the key benefits of RPA in manufacturing. This is because all the variables involved in the production processes are measured by the main computer, which usually has a built-in artificial intelligence program.
This program ensures precision and in-time production.
Remote operation and control systems are being increasingly integrated into most industrial automation systems.
These systems allow an operator to monitor and control production processes from a pre-specified distance.
Benefits of RPA in Retail
In every-day operations, a brick-and-mortar retailer is surrounded by a series of challenges. These include the large volume of products that make up the store’s stock, the high flow of people in the aisles, the variety of goods and the various peculiarities of each one.
All these issues can be tackled with RPA.
Increased Productivity & Cost Reduction
An industrial automation system is able to reduce installation costs, as they can offer an agile return on investment by increasing productivity and efficiency. A rapid ROI makes it possible to offset the initial installation costs.
Furthermore, RPA allows the achievement of faster production cycles with greater efficiency and repeatability.
Minimizing Errors and fraud
Any company that has a human as its intermediary for operations must be aware that it is subject to errors. Despite strict security protocols, the possibility of an inattentive employee putting some operations into risk is always considered.
However, you can rely on RPA with your sensitive data which can subtract the ineffective human interaction. And then, segregate and store data without duplication and multiple sources.
It can also help reduce the chance of any error to practically zero, as the robot is not susceptible to skipping steps or forgetting processes.
Benefits of RPA in Supply Chain
Managing supply chain automation involves methods that provide greater integration and better management of network parameters from acquisition, transportation and inventory to costs.
Increases Visibility & Streamlined Inventory Management
Automating the supply chain means having visibility into all processes, from production, inventory management and distribution to the sale of the final product to the consumer.
This real-time information makes it possible to know what all problems are occurring along the route of the product.
Anticipating the market’s need and ordering only what is necessary to do business is a great skill, as it prevents products from stalling and causes a greater inventory turnover.
Responsiveness & Decision Making
With end-to-end automation, to address different business processes, organizations can respond more flexibly to changing market conditions.
Thus, having a comprehensive technological platform prepares the industry for market changes and then it can respond quickly to changes in demand.
With robotic process automation, company will have the best tools for the perfect execution of everyday processes.
In addition, they will gain much more scale with its agility and qualitative work.