Move towards Lean Operations with Robotic Process Automation

Smart is getting equated with Lean. Enterprises are thinking smart in order to fuel growth through lean operations. Enterprises need to stay agile and competitive and hence they are endeavoring towards lean operations and reducing their operational expenditure is becoming imperative. In both the developed and developing countries the growth is slowing down due to various geopolitical reasons. This factor is compelling enterprises to reduce their operational costs in order to see any sustainable increase in their year-on-year revenue. They need to strive for simplicity of operations, adopt lean practices, and automate processes. Robotic Process Automation (RPA), a business accelerator, is imparting the much-needed simplicity and automation of tasks towards a lean work culture.

Lean Approach:

1. Process Automation: RPA imparts your computer software applications the power to emulate the human decision-making and the human actions required for conducting tedious and repetitive tasks. At the same time, RPA imparts the much-needed scalability to these applications to accommodate varying amounts of workloads.
2. Simplicity in Operations: The RPA technology brings in the much-needed simplicity of operations by making tedious processes accurate, faster, and user-friendly. It enables the two-way transfer of information between any two systems without an API. It uses a hybrid approach and simplifies processes by using machine learning, rules, and content analytics.
3. Lean Practices: RPA along with optical character recognition (OCR) streamlines tedious and lengthy processes and brings out the efficacy by digitizing piles of paperwork. It interacts with existing software at the graphic user interface level with the least changes to the underlying systems. RPA is interoperable with existing enterprise systems and legacy systems and extends the functionality of these systems while reducing the need for expensive upgrades.

Robotic Process Automation (RPA) Impact:

RPA increases the productivity of an enterprise by >50%. They provide 24×7 service, accuracy, flexibility, and thorough compliance.

1. 24×7 service: RPA can work in the background in a 24×7 mode as far as the source and target are defined and with the least supervision. The uninterrupted service goes on round the clock as long as the computer’s central processing unit, servers, and electric power source are up and functioning.
2. Accuracy: RPA provides 100% accuracy in the work processing. The work is ~95% accurate as compared to human processing. The technology eliminates rework and provides leeway to human resources to focus on trickier issues that truly require intervention.
3. Flexibility: RPA solutions can be easily scaled-up and scaled-down as per the crests and troughs experienced in the workloads. The flexible and modular approach helps an enterprise to stay lean by maintaining the optimum amount of resources.
4. Compliance: RPA solutions always follow a step-by-step approach defined in the standard operating procedures with an ensured data log that gets generated in the background. This proves immensely helpful as far as statutory audits are concerned along with key accountability and authentication at the employee level.

Smart business operations are the need of the hour. Today, maintaining low operational costs has become important when growth and in turn the gross domestic product value is declining. Innovative enterprises keep on creating value by offering cost-efficient novel solutions. They try to maintain an edge over the competition by offering lower prices for value-added products. In this scenario, technologies such as RPA allow enterprises to stay competitive by moving towards a lean operating structure.