How to employ a robot in five steps?

According to the report “Robots are ready to work. Is your company ready to take advantage of them? 2018” prepared by Deloitte, almost 40% of managers regard an increase in productivity as the main goal of implementing robotic process automation of business processes. Other benefits resulting from using robotics is cost and risk reduction, or improved quality and general efficiency of office operations.

If you are not sure whether your company is ready for RPA and this process seems to you complicated and time-consuming, below we will show you in five steps how to automate repetitive processes in the organisation thanks to deploying robots and to do it in a simple and effective way.

STEP 1. Discovering processes that are to be automated.

The key to start the RPA journey is above all about:

• determining the automation potential in the company
• identifying priorities in line with business goals
• deciding which processes should be automated first: these may be activities that employees do not find very attractive and that are boring, with repetitive tasks requiring detailed attention and being prone to human error. In other words, the robot can perform tasks which humans do not like.

A specific process will be a perfect-fit for automation if it has at least some of the features mentioned below (not necessarily all at once):

• the process is highly-standardised, documented and stable,
• the data that it processes are available in a digital form,
• the process requires much human labour that is repetitive,
• the system that is being automated is relatively stable as for adding new functionalities and there are no plans in the near future to introduce any significant changes into its architecture,
• the process that is being automated is prone to human error (it requires a great amount of sensitive data input, including amounts, dates or customer IDs),
• the process that is being automated includes several IT systems, so it requires the human to multitask and to frequently switch between interfaces,
• the process that is being automated is subject to considerable volume fluctuations, and so it is difficult to provide optimal human service at the appropriate level.

STEP 2. Analysing the processes. 

Step 2 means the analysis of each process, where we can indicate the right area to be automated. At this stage we engage employees who know best what their tasks are and what problems they experience in their everyday work. Their opinions and clues are relevant because, for instance:

• not all information about a specific process is stored in documents
• documents may be out of date or incomplete
• a specific process is sometimes carried out in a way different from the official procedure.

 STEP 3. Designing and implementing digital co-workers.

After the initial analysis and choosing promising processes that are fit for automation, there comes the stage of designing and implementing all of the ideas. In our case this task is carried out by our Robo Shepherds, who design the first digital co-workers. This process usually lasts for three to six weeks.

 STEP 4. Testing and deploying robots.

Testing and monitoring the work of robots helps to analyse how specific processes operate and identify potential problems.  This stage ends with deploying robots, which start performing their tasks.

 STEP 5. Training employees.

Implementing RPA with the help of robots means implementing changes in the organisations itself, and that is why the last step should involve training employees in new processes, so that they know how each robot works and how to react in case of any difficulties.

Robotic process automation with Digital Teammates is easier, since we bear the responsibility for taking each of the steps mentioned above. We need you only to help us to identify the areas in which robots can work effectively, and then to inform us that the deployed robots do their tasks properly. This approach minimises the effort on your part and makes the automation of even very complicated processes to run quickly and smoothly, and what is even more important, we guarantee that once we deploy robots, they will work as long as you need them, even if in the meantime there will be changes in systems or the relevant process.

If you want to start RPA today or have any questions that we can still answer, do not hesitate to contact us at kontakt@dtmates.com.

Read about the robot manufacturing robot automation.