Improvement Can Not Be Made Without Understanding The Current Situation
Improvement cannot be done without understanding the current state”. This applies for process improvement – how to improve process efficiency with robotics without knowledge about what the current process state is or what kinds of deviations or variations there exist? Process mining brings vital insight by revealing the as-is process state from a data-driven perspective, and reduces the ambiguity caused by decision-making based on a hunch. Same time the understanding of, which are the wanted process steps and what are the deviations that cause most of the unnecessary steps and work, is built.
Processes naturally have very wide variations and it is not effective nor profitable to use RPA on all process variations, but only on the most frequent ones.
Programming the software robots is quite expensive, and a misplaced investment would not pay itself back ever. Therefore, processes should be harmonized first, to create high volumes per variation.
Only then the automation by robotics would be as beneficial as possible. The more different variations robots need to cope with, the higher the RPA costs are.
The results of the automation projects can be difficult to measure. Therefore, process mining is important - to know that the software robotics is achieving the desired outcome, and that processes are executed as designed. This kind of process benchmarking and process compliance measuring is also an effective way to focus the organization’s investments more accurately and with a higher return on investment.
Ironman Consulting supports companies' investment and feasibility studies with process mining and process performance measurement consulting solutions.