If you are thinking about automation or already part way through then here are ten practical tips to assist you with achieving your goals and making it successful:
- Identify pain points in your system or operations that can be highly repetitive and time consuming. These are ideal areas to automate especially with Robotics Process Automation (RPA).
- Carry out small pilots with tools against easy, medium and complex areas of the system or process to determine timings and suitability of tools against the technology stack. It is no use spending thousands of dollars on tools and automation where it is not compatible or the cost to run it far outweighs the benefit from automation. Try not to choose the tools first but rather determine what the problem is you are trying to solve.
- Use metrics to determine effectiveness of automation. It is no use spending thirty days on automating something and then having to maintain it when it can be run manually in a far quicker time. Remember it is still fine to do some things manually.
- Assess how the automation will be run in the future. Do you use a service provider to run and maintain it or do you want to upskill and maintain in house? Both solutions are acceptable, but you need to weigh up the benefits of owning it in house versus using a service provider to run it as and when needed.
- Work with IT & Architecture to determine what the end technology footprint looks like. If there are plans in place to create straight through processing that you were looking to automate via the user interface, then the benefits may only be short term.
- Use automation such as RPA for areas where there is a high duplication of manual effort such as re-keying information from one system to another document or online form into another system. Many companies hire team of temporary staff to input data from one system to another without appropriate data validation . This results in poor quality, mistakes and bigger problems longer term. When automating these areas with appropriate validation rules, the investment payback can be extremely fast.
- Consult professionals to get input into your automation approach but try not to create something that is so complex that it is difficult to understand and apply practically to your organisation. In other words, do not just do it for the purpose of saying you are doing automation.
- Always ask yourself the question. Can this be done better by applying automation?
- Use automation to address short term problems that you need to solve. Sometimes the time it will take large systems to integrate may be years away. Why not look at automation solutions that will still solve the problem even temporarily where you will still get the pay back. Many organisations hold off doing anything until the bigger solution comes along. It is okay to decommission some of your automation in the future just like you do with systems.
- Continue to measure the effectiveness of the automation you use. Sometimes things on a white board or spreadsheets analysing the benefits don’t always translate back to a real solution. By constantly measuring and assessing you can re-calibrate and ensure you are getting the benefits you intended out of it.
Always ask yourself the question. Can this be done better by applying automation?
Would you like to discuss?
Should you wish to discuss your up and coming automation requirements or would simply like an assessment as to where automation may provide value in your organisation please contact us today via ajq.com.au or directly at +61 2 92475999 / info@ajq.com.au
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