A supply chain consists of processes that are necessary to get goods or services to the consumer. Sourcer, manufacturers, vendors, warehouses, transportation companies, distribution centers, and retailers are a few of the entities involved in the supply chain. RPA in Supply Chain enables supply chain enterprises to quickly scale up to meet demand-driven supply chain business requirements and to save time in repetitive work and create additional efficiency.
What is RPA?
RPA stands for Robotic Process Automation. RPA operates in automating manual tedious repetitive tasks by software robots. These software robots are software programs that are built to do the self-regulation work by replacing the human element.
The work could be addressing queries, making calculations, maintenance of records, and performing transactions.
Why should supply chain industries opt for RPA?
The companies will have a good future in the supply chain with Robotic Process Automation. The benefits of automation in any industry are exceptional such as reduced costs, greater accuracy, increased ROI, etc. In the supply chain, 70% of the repetitive tasks can be done through automation. Companies can take greater advantage of the time which goes into manual work by adapting RPA and enjoy better customer value.
How is RPA used in the Supply Chain?
Some of the use cases of Robotic Process Automation in the supply chain industry are -
Automation of Emails -
Every organization needs to maintain a healthy relationship with the customers. In the Supply chain, the relationship between customers, retailers, wholesalers, suppliers, etc. is analytical. Here communicating is the only key that works in case of delayed products or any other issue. Although this communication used to be done manually now with Robots it has become easier to automate the communication process. Emails are automated and have the ability to understand incoming emails and respond accordingly.
Managing supply and demand -
Organizations find supply and demand a bit challenging. The data needs to be collected from a no. of sources and presented in a structured format. The data could be about suppliers, market information, customers, etc.
After the advent of RPA, the planning for supply and demand can be automated. The bots help in collecting the data from different sources and executing it to automation.
Order Processing and payments -
Some businesses still prefer paperwork for their transactions data or work through the database manually, which wastes time. Order processing is mainly about selecting a product or service, initiating the payment, and confirming of order.
All this can be automated through bots and all the information is updated in the database automatically. Thus saving time and the chances of error are none.
Product Inquiry -
Logistics service centers receive a no. of inquiries from consumers about their order status and shipment. A lot of manual work is to be done there from checking each email to find the shipment record, then recording the shipment, and finally updating status information. However, Once RPA is implemented the whole process can be automated.
What are the benefits of RPA in the Supply Chain?
Productivity - As humans are free from tedious tasks they can be deployed to do more skilled and higher-value tasks. Robots are faster than humans so work gets done quickly without errors.
Security - Robots keep a 100% record of their actions, which can be retrieved if necessary. Managing security for robots is easy. There is no risk of intentional or accidental disclosure of sensitive data.
Accuracy - The robot is very compact because it does not take up space and thus, routine works are performed consistently with zero errors.
Zero Disruption - The RPA works as a front-end and hence no need to change the existing software.
Conclusion
Robotic Process Automation is an advanced growth for any industry. Not only it will make processes easily done but also working around bots is quite interesting. In the supply chain, bots are proven to be more efficient and meet customer expectations.
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