Robotic Process Automation (RPA) and EPC Industry

Objective of the today’s article is dwell into Robotic Process Automation overview and its importance to EPC industry use cases.

What is robotic process automation?

RPA is an application of technology, governed by business logic and structured inputs, aimed at automating business processes. Using RPA tools, a company can configure software, or a “robot,” to capture and interpret applications for processing a transaction, manipulating data, triggering responses and communicating with other digital systems.

https: //www.cio.com/article/3236451/what-is-rpa-robotic-process-automation-explained.html

The global robotic process automation (RPA) market is forecast to grow to more than 13 billion U.S. dollars by 2030, an increase of more than 12 billion compared to 2020.

(Source Statista.com : paid services for industry reports)

Any one who feels ; this is not for EPC is burying his head in the sand, along other powerful Buzz words like AI and ML real transformation is also happening with such technologies.

RPA and Digitalisation:

Although RPA has arrived little earlier; it was more looked into as standalone process automation technique , however recent development in Machine Learning capabilities and their integration has evolved this space. Most of the traditional?RPA Technology providers such as UiPath, Automation Anywhere coming up with Intelligent RPA solutions.

There is nice article on how both Intelligent RPA (AI + RPA) of them can benefit or rather compliment to each other:

https://enterprisersproject.com/article/2020/8/how-rpa-robotic-process-automation-and-digital-transformation-work

Summary :?

for EPC organisation reap benefit of transformed ?digitalised processes; utilisation of RPA needs to be hand-in hand with Digital Transformation goals.?

EPC Use selection :

Although at the base level, selecting a simple business case which is tried and tested ; in Finance , IT / and HR seems to be low hanging fruit and many organisations can initiate their journey into it. However real transformational benefits can be achieved by integrating it in to Core Engg, Procurement and Construction workflow.

There is abundant information available on selecting use case of RPA ; however, following parameters are foundation of successful implementations as per my experience.

By the looks of it , we can draw following observations with respect to EPC process industry.

1. Huge Potential?: There huge potential and use cases to adopt RPA not only traditional but core business workflows
2. Matching Tried and Tested Use Cases with other sector:?Fundamentally the?use cases remain same leading to easy adoption for EPC ( Ex. IT, HR, Finance)
3. Managed Understanding : There is lack of awareness and adoption of RPA EPC ( all automation are viewed as RPA use cases, leading to often misunderstood low results- losing out of the potential benefit)
4. Lack of Change Agents : Skill Gap in Technology Champions and their influence in marketing the benefits within the organisations.

Simple approach to easy adoptions:

Following approach can be adopted by the EPC companies to adopt the RPA Solutions to drive the digitalisation journey successful ;

Routines, such as:

• Employee?selection, On boarding processes
• Vendor On boarding
• Server Management, IT Policy Management

Easy Wins ( High Value and Low Risk) Use Cases :

• Invoice processing ,
• Purchase order Reconciliations
• ?Document Consolidations and Distribution?
• Cost reconciliation with or without ERP systems

High Value High Risk

• Core Business Routines (Deliverable Generation, Deliverable verification between applications, schedule preparation or reconciliation , reporting optimizations)

Bottom line drivers:

Process that can really improve the speed of work process and bear bottom line benefits?

I am sure this will evoke a discussion among the fraternity directly and indirectly; discussion is first step towards realizations.

Please review and share your thoughts;?

Additional reference:

https://isg-one.com/solutions/articles/automation-opportunities-build-in-the-epc-industry

https://www.blueandco.com/construction-and-engineering-use-cases-for-robotic-process-automation/