LU03

Robotic Process Automation II

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

Technologies I Technologies II Collaboration Strategies
Phase - 1

Repeat ~~~~ While

With RPA –
Possible Processes to Automate
Function Examples of RPA application
• Consolidate orders in emails from customers
Order
• Upload orders in excel to order management systems software
Processing • Convert PDF to word/excel to transfer into system
• Update order status to deduct inventory in system
Inventory
• Track shipping / inventory status
Management • Perform receiving , picking, returns, orders, in materials management system
• Update delivery zone in system
Delivery
• Sort postal codes in the delivery list to minimize route distance
Planning • Visualize routes on map automatically
• Issue PO based on lead time and current inventory levels
Production
• Check inventory availability base on Bill‐of‐Materials requirements
Planning • Check and schedule production
• Create the list of items that have reached re‐order point to issue PO
Purchasing /
• Customize PO info based on supplier, what to order, quantity and UoM.
Procurement • Track delivery status of orders in system
• Automatic retrieval / scrapping data from websites
Marketing • Customized emails to customers
• Automate the updating process based on customers’ replies
• Update status of payment in system
Finance • Compile accounts payable and accounts receivable records for analysis and reporting
• Claims submission, Transport, Medical, etc
Admin • Updating the records in system, uploading of files into system, etc.
 Limitation of Repeat
• For repeated tasks, task might be to transfer the data from
an excel file(s) to web form / system software.
• Number of records (rows) in each excel need not be same.
Write VBA macro to find out the number of records ?
• Number of rows of might not be known prior hand.
• Need to automate the process even when the number of
rows in the file is unknown.
• While function is handy in handling such scenarios.
Name Student ID Telephone Email Interest
1 Asher 17876543 23456789 asher@123.com Yes
2 Leslie 17234567 34567890 leslie@123.com Yes
3 Lewis 17345678 45678901 lewis@123.com No
4 Alan 17456789 56789012 alan@123.com Yes
5 Leena 17567890 67890123 leena@123.com No
 While
• The number of records (rows) in the MS‐Excel table not
known (fixed).
• RPA needs to stop copying after the last row is completed.
• While function is used to instruct (control) the RPA to
continue looping the task as long as the first cell of a record
(row) is not empty.
Name Student ID Telephone Email Interest
1 Asher 17876543 23456789 asher@123.com Yes
2 Leslie 17234567 34567890 leslie@123.com Yes
3 Lewis 17345678 45678901 lewis@123.com No
4 Alan 17456789 56789012 alan@123.com Yes
5 Leena 17567890 67890123 leena@123.com No
 Identification of Empty Cell

• Key in the variable name that needs empty cell checking.

• Select the variable from the pop‐up list.
 Activity – Let’s script with While

Empty cell checking

To repeat
until the
last row is
done
Activity – Let’s script with While …
Phase - 2

Automate selection with IF

IF .. Then .. Else
• Automating a selection involving drop down list or radio
buttons or multiple options selection.
• IF‐ELSE function provides an ability to route workflow
execution to different step groups depending on condition
specified.

Name Student ID Telephone Email Interest

1 Asher 17876543 23456789 asher@123.com Yes
2 Leslie 17234567 34567890 leslie@123.com Yes
3 Lewis 17345678 45678901 lewis@123.com No
4 Alan 17456789 56789012 alan@123.com Yes
5 Leena 17567890 67890123 leena@123.com No
Activity – Let’s improve script with
If .. Else
Activity – Let’s improve script with
If .. Else .. Pull Down option

If the condition matches the criteria

of “Yes”, DOWN arrow select Yes
Else .. DOWN, DOWN to select No,
Then press Enter to choose selection
Phase - 3

Automation with AI
Chatbots
Focus Makeover … Customer
New Customer Experience
Age of Customer
• Surveys to Measure Customer Satisfaction.
• Increase Customer Loyalty.
• Customer Journey Mapping.
• Customer Interaction Monitoring.
• Customer Onboarding.
• Customer Centric Culture.
• Services:
• Customer Experience,
• Customer Loyalty,
• Customer Acquisition,
• Customer Retention.
• Email sample,
• Questionnaire to fill in,
• Web form to fill in,
• etc..
What is AI?
Artificial Intelligence (AI) also called Smart Process
Automation (SPA), is intelligent software with
machine‐learning capabilities.
• Unlike RPA, which must be programmed to perform a
task, AI can train itself or be trained to automate more
complex and subjective work through pattern
recognition
• Unlike RPA, which requires a human expert to hard
code a script or workflow into a system, AI can process
natural language and unstructured data
• Unlike RPA, AI responds to a change in the
environment, adapts and learns the new way
What is AI?
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is an intelligence displayed by machines,
in which, learning and action‐based capabilities mimic autonomy
rather than process oriented intelligence. The time and money
wasted on trivial tasks that are conducted operationally by
humans.

AI was broken down into two categories:

• Augmentation: AI, which assists humans with their day‐to‐day
tasks, personally or commercially without having complete
control of the output. Such Artificial Intelligence is used in Virtual
Assistant, Data analysis, software solutions; where they are
mainly used to reduce errors due to human bias.

• Automation: AI, which works completely autonomously in any

field without the need for any human intervention. For example,
robots performing key process steps in manufacturing plants”
(arkieva.com 2017).
AI Capabilities

First, capturing information, which can be done

through:
• Vision recognition (e.g., recognizing a face or photo),
• Sound recognition (e.g., transcribing spoken words),
• Search (e.g., extracting data from unstructured or semi‐structured
documents), or
• Data analysis (e.g., identifying clusters of behaviors in customer
data).
• Each of these turns data into information and are
the most mature application of AI in business
today.
AI Capabilities
Second, turning that information into something useful through:
• Natural language processing (e.g., extracting meaningful data from an
email),
• Reasoning (e.g., should I act based on the information given), or
• Prediction (e.g., predicting buying behavior based on past
• purchases)

Third, understanding why something is happening.

• This capability feeds off the first two categories described above.
• This is the least advanced area of AI and is not yet relevant to business
applications, but will have a huge impact once it matures.

With “machine learning,” programmers don’t encode computers with

instructions. They train AI systems.
“With machine learning, the engineer never knows precisely how the
computer accomplishes its tasks. The neural network’s operations are
largely opaque and inscrutable. In other words, it is a black box.”.
Applications of AI – different companies
 AI in Supply Chain Management (SCM)
• SCM is critical in almost every industry today.
• Businesses are showing increased interest in AI applications,
from its benefits to fully leveraging the vast mounts of collected
by industrial logistics, warehousing and transportation problems.
• AI can improve the efficiency of their supply chains:
• What are current applications of AI in SCM?
• Which applications are experimental, and which seems to have real
traction and business value?
• What elements of their jobs will be augmented – or even fully
automated – by the intelligent systems.
• How will more “automate‐able” jobs have to adapt in the years
ahead?
AI in SCM
AI into SCM related activities hasn’t been actualized on
a wide-scale.

1. Chatbots for Operational Procurement

2. Machine Learning (ML) for Supply Chain Planning (SCP)
3. Machine Learning for Warehouse Management
4. Autonomous Vehicles for Logistics and Shipping
5. Natural Language Processing (NLP) for Data Cleansing and
Building Data Robustness
6. ML and Predictive Analytics for Supplier Selection and
Supplier Relationship Management (SRM)
Use of Chatbots
• Get customized notifications and news
A bot can act as a smart newspaper, sending you relevant content as soon as it's
published.
• Integrate with other services
A bot can enrich chats with content from external services like IMDB, Wiki, YouTube,
GitHub, Foursquare.
• Create custom tools
A bot may provide you with alerts, weather forecasts, translations, formatting or
other services.
• Build single and multiplayer games
A bot can play chess and checkers against you, act as host in quiz games, or even take
up the dungeon master's dice for an RPG.
• Build social services
A bot could connect people looking for companionship
Case: Ask Jamie
• A virtual assistant (VA) implemented on government agency
websites and trained to be able to answer queries within
specific domains
• Trained to anticipate, asked follow up questions relevant to
the context of a question
 Case: OCBC chatbot ‘Emma’

Providing a Fast and Convenient Channel

to answer queries 24/7.
Tools of Chatbots
1. ChatFuel
2. Engati
3. Chattypeople
4. Microsoft’s ‘Bot Platform’
5. ChatScript
6. DialogFlow (Formerly API.AI)
DialogFlow
• API.AI is a conversational user experience platform enabling natural language
interactions for devices, applications and services.
• Acquired by Google in Sep 2016, Renamed as DialogFlow on 10 Oct 2017
• Website: https://dialogflow.com/

• Getting Started with Dialogflow:

• Sign‐up an account or use google account (recommended)
• Create a new Agent
Step 1 – Create the ChatBot
• Create an Intent
• Type some questions that a user will
ask
• Specify an action
• Provide a Text Response
• Intent Name
• What is chatbot
• Training phrases
• What is chatbot?
• Action and Parameters
• Define chatbot
• Text Response
• Some explanation / description ……
• Test the Chatbot
ChatBot “Hosting”
Chatbots “live” in many messaging platforms
• Telegram
• Facebook Messenger
• Skype
• Twilio (Text Messaging)
• Mobile App
• Website
Step 2 – Create the Telegram Bot

• Sign up for a Telegram account

• https://web.telegram.org
• Login to Telegram and go to BotFather
• Type: /newbot and enter a name
• Enter a username, ending with “bot”
(Must be unique)
• Copy the generated access token
• Note: name is not the same as username
Step 3 – Setting up Telegram
in DialogFlow
• In Dialogflow, go to Integrations in the left hand menu
• Click on the Telegram tile
• Paste the Access Token copied from Telegram into the related
field
• Click the start button
Step 4 – Testing the Chatbot
• Search for your bot in Telegram
• Type your question
Testing the Chatbot
• What if the chatbot don’t understand the question?
 Step 5 – Training the Chatbot
• Go to Training  History
• Add the question into the “chatbot” intent
Assign the
“chatbot” intent
to the question

This question will

be updated in the
chatbot intent.
After training the Chatbot
• The question “what is softbot” can now be handled by the
“chatbot” intent.
Activity 3 – Conversation Script
• Shipper vs Carrier interaction
 New Capabilities with RPA and AI
• Increasing security.
A software robot could be used to execute a process as directed,
without inappropriate data collection, fraudulent intervention or
deviation from prescribed process.
– E.g., could be particularly useful with the most sensitive data such
as personal pensions and administrative affairs of armed forces
personnel, or financial services where having a person access
multiple systems could increase the risk of fraud
• Promoting self‐service.
A principal barrier to the adoption of self‐service is often
technological
Robotic process automation could be used to provide a means of
deploying new self‐service solutions where robots simply mimic the
behavior of humans to perform backend transcription or processing
activities
New Capabilities with RPA and AI
• Promoting use of big data.
RPA software could be used to collect and organize inconsistent data
from among disparate systems to make it usable by AI for big data
analytics.
• Helping legacy systems work with cloud‐based systems.
For example, RPA software could be used to enable automated
ordering and provisioning of services through a cloud interface that
is translated to work with more traditional systems
• Overcome Geographic Hurdles.
This could create new business opportunities for clients that have
political or regulatory impediments to offshoring their IT functions or
business processes. It could also reduce to need to relocate
operations to take advantage of labor arbitrage.
Effect of RPA and AI on Labor
• The last decade was about securing cheaper labor.
The coming decade will be about replacing labor with RPA and AI.
• One software could replace multiple employees.
In one case study, 10 s/w robots replaced 20 human FTEs.
The observations was that software robots accurately follow steps whereas humans,
on the other hand, typically make 10 errors during a 100‐step process.
• Additional software robots can be deployed with relatively low marginal
cost.
Consequently, software robots could be an effective means of scaling throughput at a
fixed and known level of service and quality, by comparison to marginal labor costs.
Unless the license fees makes the marginal costs higher for the customer.
• RPA will redefine a lot of roles and require new skills and training.
• Training or recruitment of appropriately skilled personnel have to be factored in
evaluating RPA solutions
Learning Outcomes
• Illustrate the steps to automate the data transfer.
• Understand the importance of AI and its applications in
SCM
• Gain insights to the evolution of Chatbot landscape.
• Describe the process flow to develop and automate the
smart process automation application with a chatbot.
Today’s assessment

Transfer the Data

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

Name Email Job Title Phone number Feedback

Ryan ryan@gmail.com Lecturer 63216781 Boring
Hazel hazel@gmail.com Finance Manager 90001892 Interesting
Hari hari@yahoo.com Business Manager 56777777 Neutral
Jason jason@yahoo.com Marketing Manager 33888999 Interesting
Chin Liang cheliang@gmail.com IT Manager 22266677 Boring