LU02

Robotic Process Automation I

E223 - IT for Supply Chain Management

Overview of E223 -
IT for Supply Chain Management
InfoCom Data
Data Mining
Fundamentals Analytics

Automation I Data Retrieval IT Project

Management I

Automation II Data Modelling IT Project

Management II

AIDC AIDC Business E‐Business

Technology I Technology II Collaboration Strategies
Phase - 1

Introduction to RPA
The challenges
• Global Competition
Many failed to change their business models and processes to adapt.

• Skilled Labour Shortage

Unique ability to problem solve, analyze issues and manage output.

• Technology Advances
Automation, the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), robotics, cloud
computing and more...technology is advancing at warp speed.

By the time companies go through the process of researching,

getting approval, purchasing and install a new technology~
A faster and more agile solution may emerge.
The best first step to incorporate useful technologies to help your
organization improve efficiencies.
Select the most practical, cost-effective technologies and equipment,
oversee implementation, train your team, and help to get the greatest ROI.
Statistics on Work Productivity

2 months
“

out of a
year is spent
doing
administrative
and repetitive
tasks”
Need for Automate-able job
• Time and Money wasted on trivial supply chain related-
tasks that are conducted operationally by humans.
• “Businesses estimate they spend on average per week
around 55 hours doing manual, paper-based processes
and checks; 39 hours chasing invoice exceptions,
discrepancies and errors and 23 hours responding to
supplier inquiries”. mhlnews.com 2017
• This loss has been equated to around 6500 hours,
during the work year, that businesses are throwing away
by processing papers, fixing purchase orders and
replying to suppliers.
• If a business could automate such tasks that are (more
or less) ‘wasting time’.
• Enhancing Productivity and Profits.
The Opportunity
Reimagining with RPA
 What is RPA?
Robotic Process Automation

Mimic human working on a laptop/PC

By using keyboard/mouse controls to

take actions and execute automations
RPA

A virtual robot
Robotic Process Automation (RPA)

• Software robots that mimic the work of humans

across applications non‐invasively:
The application of technology that enables computer software to
partially or fully automate human activities which are
manual, repetitive and rule‐based;
High volume and / or long running.
• RPA gives a company the ability to map out a
business process that is definable, repeatable and
rules‐based and assign a software “robot” to
manage the execution of that process
• RPA is a low cost labour:
RPA is here today and here to stay;

RPA providing new opportunities to organizations.

Use Cases
A team of 11 bank employees was assigned to manually review on a daily
basis 2,500 high‐risk customer accounts to determine whether or not
payments should be processed or returned.
• It took up to 8 hours for these 11 employees to finish the task.
• The work is now performed by 20 software robots, while the employees
are freed to do higher‐value work.

A construction engineering business produces and sends over 500 invoices

per month to customers, each requiring up to hundreds of pages of
supporting data from a dozen different systems.
• Each invoice previously took up to 5 hours to produce.
• The work was converted to software robots and now takes only 11
minutes per invoice, with millions of dollars in savings.
Use Case

45mins to 1min
(199 process steps, 5 systems, 27 screens)

120mins to 12mins
(166 process steps, multiple spreadsheets)
Use Case

240s to 40s
(12 screens)

3.5 times faster

(1,800 applications per day)

23 Nov 2017
 CDAS Personalize Emails - Improvement

Before RPA

Bcc members to Member Check if it is a Update new

Start update member provides contact duplicate or a contact if not End
contact details details new contact a duplicate

3 days / once month

After RPA
Member
Customize email to provides new Update New
Start End
member contact details if Contact
needed

4 hours / once month Leverage on email functions to complement

RPA for a more efficient process
Faster and more accurate data transfer with RPA
Use Case in SEG, RP

Prepare Internship Letters

Advantages of RPA

Across different systems

Code free
Non‐disruptive / non‐invasive

Reduced Human Errors

Byte Size Low cost &

Quick deployment
Advantages of RPA

Source: Cognizant Center for the Future of Work

RPA Providers / tools

Source: The Forrester Wave™:

Robotic Process Automation, Q2 2018
Activity-1: Transfer the data
• Excel file, Google form, and RPA
Phase - 2

RPA in Action
 Let’s start Workfusion RPA Express
1. Click on the Workfusion RPA Express icon at your desktop to start the
application. (Note: it might take a while for the application to launch)
2. After the application has started, click on the Show hidden icons
3. Clicking on the hidden icon will open up the explorer window.
4. Select “Open RPA Recorder” to launch the recorder.

RPA Express
hidden icon
 Workfusion RPA Express
The RPA Express window contains three main sections:
Action Library, Media File/Variable and the Scripting section

Action Library
Scripting section

Media Files
and
Variables tabs
 Create a New Recording
Click on “File” or RPA recorder (depending on version)
1

2
Click on “New Recording”

Or use short‐cut combinatoin “Ctrl+5”

You can choose to

rename the
recording file name Important: File name must retain
the “.rpae” extension
Let’s transfer the data with RPA
• Excel file, Google form, and RPA

Check the box, and Submit.

Activity-2
Transferring the data – Process Flow
• Excel file ↔ Google form

• Is this a better way ?

MSExcel

Google
Form
 Use “Recorder Variable”
• Each piece (cell) of information from MSExcel will first be
assigned to a variable, before switching to Google Form
window for insertion to the respective fields.

Each new variable created can be

renamed, by following naming
convention below:
‐ all letters must be in lower case
‐ begin with a letter
‐ symbol or spacing is not allowed

In this exercise, the

Click “+” to add Type of each variable
new variable to be set as “String”
Improvised Process Flow
• Excel file ↔ Google form….. Is this a better way ?

MSExcel
Google
Form
Activity-3
• Multiple lines of information e.g. 5 rows of data to be
transferred.

Any better way ?

Phase - 3

Generate Emails using RPA

across platforms
Let’s generate Email(s)
1. Get the recipient’s name and email information,
2. Get the acknowledgement text, and
3. Draft an email in Outlook and save the email.
 Smarter Every Day

• Exception processing automation

• Knowing when to call for human assistance

• Complex data‐based decision capability

• Reusable object, process, and event library

• Neural network training

• Cognitive models and robotic decision making

 With RPA
• Increase efficiencies
• Reduce costs
• Improve quality
• Remote control
• Team and fleet control
• In‐house IT capacity not a limiter
• Robust access controls and Change Management
• Any collectible data can be captured
• Definable data capture
• Date, time, source data, system response data
• Individual, group, and fleet robot controls
• External audit capable – proven in highly regulated
industries
Perfect for work with data humans shouldn’t see. Full
disclosure of every event in processing history
Learning Outcomes
• Define Software Automation and Hardware Automation
• Classify repetitive and non‐repetitive processes
• Identify the need for automation of repetitive processes
• Illustrate the steps to automate the data transfer and/or
creation of follow‐on document(s)
• Implement RPA procedure to transfer the data from a local
file to a cloud based form.
Today’s assessment

Transfer the Data

 Assessment – Transfer the data
• Transfer the excel data (last question) into web form.