The Robotics revolution has attracted recent innovations in factories in various sectors. Significantly, the manufacturing sector is experiencing error-free and streamlined procedures without completing full performance to give the best productivity using RPA. Wrong replication processes dramatically increase the risky productivity of manufacturing companies and the smart leaders of these companies embrace the Robotics Process Automation to increase their output and good productivity. Manufacturing companies are changing their production units from human resources to physical industry robots for their products to assemble, checking the quality and packing it. Though these robots help to repair the assembly line, the manufacturing companies are still struggling to manage their operational processes and back-office work. They have started using RPA to reduce the human errors and reducing the Human resources and the ability to increase the productivity. Using Robotics Process Automation technologies in their back-end operations, they are able to attain up to 40% cost savings in the various areas of work.
Opportunities for application of RPA in Manufacturing sector
To more closely consider the role of RPA in manufacturing, let’s look at a large auto company based in Japan with 100,000 employees. Despite the use of physical robots in its manufacturing assembly line, the company faced significant pain points in the back office: keeping up with new regulations, lack of skilled labor, and inventory management. These factors limited the company’s ability to reduce costs, provide exceptional services and innovation to its customers, and maintain efficient communication with suppliers.
Opportunities for application of RPA in Manufacturing sector
To more closely consider the role of RPA in manufacturing, let’s look at a large auto company based in Japan with 100,000 employees. Despite the use of physical robots in its manufacturing assembly line, the company faced significant pain points in the back office: keeping up with new regulations, lack of skilled labor, and inventory management. These factors limited the company’s ability to reduce costs, provide exceptional services and innovation to its customers, and maintain efficient communication with suppliers.
Like many other companies in the manufacturing sector, the automobile manufacturer was significantly burdened with changing regulation and compliance measures in the areas of finance, health and safety, and waste management. Because the manufacturer had a global customer and supplier base, it was especially challenged to maintain compliance with regulations that varied between countries. Furthermore, abiding by these regulations contributed to more than 11% of the company’s expenses each year. The manufacturer was also faced with a significant skills gap because many of its skilled workers, were retiring and rates were increasing rapidly. In order to keep up with the proportion of retiring workers, the company faced a 300% hiring increase compared to 5 years ago. Increased operational hurdles with the boom in hiring burdened the HR department (recruiting new individuals, reviewing resumes, scheduling interviews, processing paperwork).
Another labor-intensive, manual process, which was problematic was inventory control, especially due to unpredictabilities in supplier delivery and customer demand. The manufacturer was unable to maintain efficient inventory turnover and often did not have enough finished automobiles to meet customer demand.
With RPA, the auto company shifted gears. They were able to automate crucial back office processes, and also identified and improved deficiencies within these operations. By automating emails, procurement processes, as well as the digitization of paperwork, the company was able to attain better inventory control and ensure optimum levels of skills employment. Real-time monitoring of customer demand, production capacity, and inventory levels meant that the company experienced leaner, more efficient operations across the value chain, reduced costs, and enhanced communications with both suppliers and customers.