In this blog post, we will be looking at the uses of RPA in Manufacturing domain.
Automation is not a new technology adopted by the manufacturing industry. However, when talking about the manufacturing industry, we usually relate automation with physical robots used for assembly lines, testing, and production.
The industry is still struggling to streamline its mundane back-end processes. The key reasons can be unskilled labor, lengthy operations, and lack of management of manual errors.
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5 Key Uses of RPA in Manufacturing
RPA is the key to addressing these challenges. Manufacturing companies can adopt RPA for seamless automation of their back-end operations. There are software bots that can be commanded as per the need to execute certain tasks without human intervention.
The technology can be easily implemented as it does not require dramatic changes in the infrastructure. It can be efficiently integrated with legacy systems, which in turn can save cost and time.
43% of manufacturers already use robotic process automation, while a further 43% plan to deploy RPA initiatives. – A study by Impact Networking
Benefits of RPA in manufacturing
RPA Services enable manufacturing firms to focus more on product innovation and core strengths. This eliminates the need to constantly work on day-to-day, repetitive tasks. Software bots are trained to handle such processes effectively.
Some of the key benefits offered by RPA are:
- Increase accuracy and process execution speed.
- Improved business workflow, resulting in high profitability, scalability, and flexibility.
- Manage inventory and authorize returns while optimizing overall costs.
Five essential use cases of RPA
Industrial automation has several uses for the manufacturing sector. RPA use cases are expanding in manufacturing, creating new opportunities for novel applications and trends. Let us understand some of the use cases of RPA implementation.
1. Finance Automation
Manufacturers can eliminate the billing errors that result in delayed payments. Implementing RPA for finance automation can solve issues in the following areas:
- Invoice payment: You can share the invoices directly with the customers with no human involvement by leveraging software bots.
- Freight rating and payment auditing: Automate the entire order-to-cash process for hundreds of carriers.
- Bill-of-material (BoM): Reduce manual efforts by replicating human tasks and maintaining optimal stock levels of materials.
2. Inventory and supply chain
Companies often face issues like tracking purchase orders, reducing inventory waste, maintaining supplier relations, and monitoring every carrier and freight. Bots can automate the end-to-end supply chain operations with:
- Shipment scheduling and tracking: RPA bots monitor orders and update the schedule and automatically assign delivery partners as well.
- Stock optimization: RPA bots can track and record the inventory flow. The report can be automatically shared with the employees concerned for better management.
- SKU updates: Match your stock-keeping units (SKUs) and download order requirement files for a seamless supply chain process.
3. CSR and ERP automation
RPA integration with ERP systems makes resource planning efficient. Moreover, with CSR automation, manufacturers can ensure improved customer satisfaction.
- Quote creation: Software bots automate the process of creating and delivering quotations based on the transactions initiated on the company’s website.
- Record updating: RPA bots work rigorously to check duplicates and convert unstructured data to structured format. They also compare invoices against purchase orders to eliminate data errors.
4. Quality check and assessment
Manufacturing companies use high-quality industrial machines for complex production processes. However, to ensure that these machines produce quality products, it is essential to have a robust quality check. Intelligent process automation (IPA) can help to automate inspection.
- Parametric quality assurance: Maintain quality standards by leveraging IPA implementation with cross-reference generated data with benchmarks in place. This enables significantly reducing any quality-related issues.
- Continuous tasks: Improve quality and responsiveness of customer service and maintenance across the enterprise. Ensure reduction in downtime.
5. Compliance and risk mitigation
- Customer record updates: Keep your data updated to adhere to compliances like GDPR. RPA helps in keeping the business process secure along with your customers, suppliers, and company information that is saved in a central log.
- Adhere to compliance policies: Minimize or prevent illegal activities and misconduct. RPA integration safeguards the privacy of employee and customer data.
- Breach management: With automated comprehensive reporting, bots can help to eliminate threats by sending alerts in case of any security breach.
RPA in manufacturing ensures improved accuracy and productivity
RPA in manufacturing has truly become apparent as a breakpoint for process automation, allowing manufacturers to focus on their end goal. Intelligent automation helps manufacturers improve productivity, meet customer expectations and consistently drive product innovation.
Gartner expects that by 2024, organizations will lower operational costs by 30% by combining hyper-automation technologies like RPA with redesigned operational processes. Hence, it is evident that RPA is the technology that has transformational capabilities for the manufacturing sector.
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