Robotic Automation of the Supply Chain

Robotics currently play a huge role in transforming supply chains and SCM. During the first half of 2019 alone,?North American companies spent $869 million?on more than 16, 400 robots (Robotic Industries Association, 2019).

More companies today are using drones and driverless vehicles to streamline logistics operations. Companies and consumers can expect drones to become fully capable of making deliveries of small goods. Self-driving cars are also likely to be more advanced by 2020, with capabilities to make automated traffic decisions.

In warehouses, autonomous mobile robots will see more use in speeding up menial, labor-intensive tasks. Combined with?efficient warehouse management software, robots can drastically improve the supply chain’s productivity.

The growing use of robots and robotic processes automation software, however, does not end in the replacement of humans . The technology is intended to augment human efforts by speeding up simple, repetitive tasks. By relegating these tasks to machines, human workers can focus on higher-value tasks that have a more direct effect on business growth and customer experience.

Introducing RPA into your supply chain processes can have a huge influence on the efficiency and productivity of a business’ workforce and business practices.

By automating repetitive, manual-input processes that typically take a lot of time and effort from humans and giving it to a robot, you free up your workforce for more human-centric tasks.

This saves a lot of time and money and improves the effectiveness of the automated processes.

Business can use RPA in many different parts of their supply chain process including customer service, order fulfillment, shipping and tracking, data analysis, and data entry.

Businesses who properly utilize it in these types of processes see gains in customer satisfaction and increases in ROI.

RPA’s Role Within a Supply Chain

Robotic process automation continues to play a large role in many parts of a company’s supply chain process.

From customer service to managing the warehouse, RPA removes much of the unnecessary misuse of manpower, allowing people to do the people work and letting the robots automate the more menial tasks.

1. Customer Service Needs

Many people don’t realize that much of the post-sale customer service can be done through robotic process automation.

This can speed up the process, reduce the amount of waiting customers have to do before getting a response, and reduces errors.

RPA can handle a variety of tasks in this area of the supply chain such as returns, swaps, and refunds, along with re-stocking, shipping, delivery, updates, and more.

2. Data Entry Automation

Manual entry of customer and order information takes up valuable time that could be spent on tasks that require more human touch.

RPA in data automation reduces paperwork, manual labor, and can also remember trends like repeat orders and customers and other time-saving features.

3. Order Management

Depending on the company and industry, a business could be filling hundreds or thousands of orders each day, presenting the need for precision and accuracy when it comes to managing those orders from placement to delivery.

By using RPA within this process, a company can save lots of human work hours that would be spent checking stock, filling orders, shipping, and tracking deliveries. Instead, RPA automates this entire process.

Using RPA in an order management process can help streamline the overall automation process by making it easier

4. Shipping and Logistics

Complete, ship, and track deliveries for all orders with RPA-based processes that can keep you and your customers updated on the status of an order from start to finish.

Automation within shipping and logistics makes sure that everyone is aware of changes in the shipping schedule like cancellations or delays that can disrupt business operations and result in lost business.

All of this is conducted in real-time when attended or unattended bots are triggered to perform their workflows and then transmit the results (like order documents) to the appropriate stakeholders.

5. Warehouse Management

Using RPA in warehouse management streamlines processes and reduces human errors in inventory reports.

RPA can also be integrated with other software like warehouse management systems to give companies benefits in a few key areas:

• Picking:?Organizations are dealing with more inventory than ever before which can make picking difficult. Automation in this process can help pickers find items in pick-to-light systems or bring products to operators in goods-to-person systems which reduce the time workers need to go about finding items.
• Scanning:?Using scanning technology within a warehouse decreases the chance of human error and makes it easy to digitize and automatically record and transmit that data into an automated database.
• Inventory:?Digitizing paper-based, manual processes that are typically used for inventory management gives businesses better oversight over their operations, increases accuracy, and reduces the chance of inventory loss or misplacement. Automating your inventory management also makes it easier to document and report your processes which is important for compliance purposes.