In their daily work, the purchasing and accounting teams have to carry out many time-consuming and repetitive tasks. To relieve them and free up their time, the RPA technologies (Robotic process automation) makes it possible to entrust some of these tedious tasks to software robots. But what is it and how do you implement it?
1 – What is RPA?
Appeared with robotization in the industry, RPA consists in entrusting to a software robot actions carried out by a user in a computer application. It relieves the teams and allows them to focus on complex files or exceptions, and on tasks with higher added value. In business, functions Purchases, logistics and supply chain, as well as finance, treasury and audit functions would be the most affected, just behind customer service functions.
2 – Which processing operations are concerned?
Data entry, copy-paste, extraction and consolidation operations: the field of application is vast, as soon as a process is precisely described and stable, and human intervention is no longer necessary. However, RPA should rather be reserved for very repetitive processes with a low exception rate, and requires a structured source of data.
3 – In purchasing, which areas are mainly targeted?
On the scope of purchases and related functions, three areas are concerned in priority. The one directly assigned to buyers, first, since a robot can supervise the receipt of documents from a file during a call for tenders, control and validate data as part of the analysis of expenses or referencing of a supplier, facilitate the collection of information for the understanding of the market, or even automatically complete contracts from models and supplier offers. Second area concerned: supplies and the supply chain, for example for the creation and sending of purchase orders according to stock levels and consumption trends. Finally, RPA can automate many operations in the field of finance and accounts payable, in particular for the invoice processing.
4 – How does it work?
Technically, an RPA robot is a software component replicating actions hitherto performed by a human operator through the interface of a computer application, repeatedly and completely autonomously. Its implementation consists of automating a business process via specialized software, capable of following a logical diagram graphically representing the execution chain. This robotization of tasks is based on algorithms modeling sets of rules, in order to allow the performance of one or more specific operations in an automated way. Then, the robots connect to the applications and will carry out sequences of actions there, like what a user would do when interacting with his computer via a keyboard and a mouse.
5 – What is the time frame for setting up RPA robots?
After validation of the target process, the project is spread over a few weeks or a few months, knowing that it generally relates to a perfectly mastered sequence of operations. In an RPA project, the longest part concerns the selection of the tasks of the target process, generally according to a Pareto approach comparing the effort and the result to be achieved. This preparatory work is carried out in several stages, more or less long depending on the level of automation sought.
6 – Should validation procedures be put in place after robots have been processed, and can robots generate new actions?
No validation step is necessary after the passage of the robots, which carry out the processing independently from start to finish. During the months of running-in, a validator only makes it possible to control the correct execution of the process. Once the deterministic nature of the processing has been confirmed, the flow can be fully automated. After processing, the robot is even able to generate additional actions, for example by sending a reminder to a supplier in the event of an anomaly during the processing of an invoice. For this, it suffices that a model has been defined upstream and that it is a generic response.
7 – How to be sure that an RPA robot does not make mistakes?
Most errors in repetitive processing performed by a human operator are usually due to lack of attention or fatigue. The robot is not subject to this type of problem, even when working day and night, and on large volumes of operations and data. Of course, there may be exceptions. In this case, the robot isolates the transaction that poses a problem to hand over control to a user or at least save the execution context of this transaction to allow a user to intervene later.
8 – Is it possible to follow and analyze the flows processed by RPA robots?
Yes, and it is even an important best practice of robotic automation. Most RPA software also offers an ad hoc solution with a dedicated module, which allows you to monitor the behavior of robots, measure their performance, examine the results, etc. In addition to analytical reports, an alert system can even be set up to intervene in real time if necessary.
9 – Are the robots developed directly in RPA software, using which programming language?
Most RPA software offers a graphic workshop, which allows you to design processes by simply dragging and dropping activities to configure. Once the process is designed, it is deployed within a management console, which manages the robots and assigns them the work to be performed. Based on planning rules or events, the processes are therefore distributed to the robots for execution. These software often offer a “low-code” platform that does not require a programming language, even if it is sometimes necessary to master some concepts in this area.
10 – How are the anomalies that an RPA robot may encounter managed?
On this point, we must consider three types of potential “problems”:
– A business anomaly, such as the absence of a date or an amount in an invoice. In this case, consistency rules will be put in place, which will generate a business exception if they are not respected. A request for correction will be filed in the task basket of the persons concerned for validation/correction/amendment of the information, before the robot continues its processing.
– A contextual technical anomaly, for example if the digital solution or a website that the robot is supposed to use does not respond as it should. In this case, a technical exception is raised, the current execution context will be described to the administrator accompanied by a screenshot of the execution context, so that he can analyze the problem and act accordingly.
– A permanent technical anomaly, such as the redesign of interfaces in the new version of an application used by the robot. The principle of the technical exception remains equivalent to the previous scenario, but its resolution will then go through a re-design of the processing in progress, and will call on the RPA developer to amend the process itself and publish a new version.
11 – What RPA solutions are offered by Acxias to its customers?
Inasmuch as reference SAP partner on Ariba dans l’Hexagone, l’agence propose d’abord la solution Process Automation incluse dans SAP BTP, la Business Technology Platform qui regroupe dans un même environnement unifié les données et l’analytique, l’intelligence artificielle, le développement d’applications, l’automatisation et l’intégration proposés par l’éditeur. Acxias a également conçu et développé des offres complémentaires intégrant la RPA, notamment Quote.ai (création automatique des demandes d’achats), Invoice 4.0 (global dematerialization of invoices) or even Aura (automated user management). Among Acxias customers, Safran has deployed several of these innovations, with spectacular results both in terms of operational efficiency and in terms of financial gains.
12 – How will RPA evolve, what innovations are expected?
RPA proponents now want to add artificial intelligence to automation platforms, to further improve their processing capacity. The combination of the two technologies, or IPA for Intelligent process automation, will increase the power of the systems tenfold and further relieve buyers. While a conversational agent of the "chabot" type based on a classic RPA will, for example, only unfold a process, its coupling to an AI device will allow it to understand the meaning of a question or to detect a feeling (anger , satisfaction, frustration, etc.) at the interlocutor, to provide a more appropriate response, or even manage exceptions by entrusting them to a human operator. More generally, thanks to AI, the work of an RPA robot will no longer be limited to forms and other structured data, but will apply to any type of content.