The manufacturing industry is labor-intensive and uses physical labor to assemble, test and pack their products. Some of the other pain points in the manufacturing industry include time-intensive processes, struggle to streamline the assembly line, eliminate errors, delay sales, inaccurate stock optimization, obsolete supply chain management systems, defer deliveries, complex back-office operations, exasperated customers and others. This is why Robotics Process Automation (RPA) is said to be the next game-changer for the manufacturing industry.
With RPA in manufacturing industry, manufacturers can reduce time and human labor spent on mundane tasks, decrease the go-to-market time, improve data quality and reduce process errors occurred due to human interference. Therefore, any manufacturing company that is looking to unveil the full potential of their productivity, administration as well as management, must implement RPA in all their operational areas.
Here are a few use cases of robotic process automation in the manufacturing field that will help you to understand its role in optimizing various manufacturing processes.
Top four RPA use cases in manufacturing industry
Inventory control
The inventory process is one such back-office process that is quite labor-intensive when manually performed. The interconnected procedures like supplier delivery as well as the demand of consumers can lead to a lack of predictability. This inadequacy of manual process completion can further result in faulty inventory turnover and varying demand.
Deploying RPA in manufacturing automates inventory control activities such as emails, acquisition processes, and paperwork. It also monitors inventory levels and consumer demand. The RPA bots driven by artificial intelligence (AI) offers enhanced operational efficiency, considerable cost reductions, or enhanced interaction with both consumers and suppliers.
Bill of materials (BOM)
In a manufacturing setup, a Bill of Materials (BOM) is a crucial document that contains a draft of the parts and materials used to create a certain product. A prime function of BOM is to provide employees with all the information regarding the process towards creating new commodities. RPA assures manufacturers that the production operation is error-free throughout.
Invoice processing
Several manufacturing companies waste a lot of time in obtaining, assigning and approving bills through manual processes. Invoice processing begins with the receipt of an invoice and ends with the finalization and recording of payment. The robotic process automation helps to make invoice processing more efficient by automating the reporting and process entirely.
There is no need for human intervention as all the data will be updated in the appropriate systems by a predefined RPA solution. From collecting vendor invoice data and transmitting it to the right system, all this is automated with RPA and operates each time automatically.
Regulatory compliance
It is crucial to deal with sensitive consumer and supplier information as it is saved in the organization’s systems. The RPA solutions for process optimization that you implement can have access to analyze the central data log, which is eventually the data necessary for audits. The implementation of an RPA solution in manufacturing helps to streamline process updates, which makes it simpler to note the repetitive alterations in compliance regulations.
The final say
There are several benefits of RPA in manufacturing as it aligns with changing business processes and technology needs. To jumpstart many companies are initiating a pilot project by selecting a specific set of operations and can gain tangible and measurable results within a short time of implementation.
Even though RPA can automate a wide range of operations across the enterprise, it is vital to identify RPA-centric processes and their scope of implementation. This is where you will need our RPA developers – to help you with your RPA requirements.
