What I've Learned about Robotic Automation Process
My supervisor asked me to explore a robotic automation process and the companies that provide the license for it. Is there a way to produce a data script that does your repetitive manual work? I Googled it and found Softimotive and signed up for a 14-day trial just to see if I could use the tool, how hard it is. It’s robotic process automation, or RPA. Any data action you can perform on your computer, it can be performed by a robot.
The robot can do anything I can do on my computer?
It’s meant to free you up to work on more value-add things. For example, there is national account data for suppliers who request reimbursement and compensation from Conti when they deliver tires to a customer. The data was located in different places, so we’re working on putting it all into one place to make the reports easier to access.
The reports take 19 minutes every day for me to do manually, but after using RPA each report can be done in five minutes. I assign virtual tasks to the computer. The robot uses my keyboard and my mouse to perform the actions. For that five minutes, I can’t touch my computer, but I can drink my coffee and then watch the robot do all these fun looking things. It means I’m saving 425 minutes every week, 28 hours every month. Just think what you can do with that time.
What I do with the time I save?
I’m currently doing batch forecasting for distributors and customers. I’m using auto-integrated models, so I really need to focus on that and search more for how I can get the best model and forecasting. If I’m saving 85 minutes every day, that helps.
Sonali Rastogi
