Three Keys to Automation Success

In this article you’ll learn why Process Intelligence, Process Management and, Process Discovery will help you to deploy RPA development successfully.

Broken, unmanaged, non-standard, out of date and unknown are not terms that many companies would like to label their everyday processes.  But like it or not, that is how their processes usually look from an outside objective point of view.

Many companies begin their Automation Journey by  hiring a Robotic Process Automation System Integrator to automate repetitive tasks.  What they don’t know is that their tasks may not be ready. When they try to create an automation they discover that their process management is lacking.

They are missing at least one of the Three Keys to Automation success.  The key to successful RPA deployments is already having processes that are digitally up-to-date, streamlined and standardized.  To do this, an organization has to know, understand and manage their processes.  Which means using Process Intelligence and Process Management throughout the Automation Journey.

What are the Three Keys to Automation Success?

Process Management is the ability of a company to manage, optimize and align their processes with company goals.  Vital for successful automation is Process Intelligence, the level to which business processes are defined, systematized, and applied consistently.  Process Discovery is used to drive Process Intelligence in an organization.  Process Management is where we put that data to use.

We are firmly in the age of automation, the silver bullet that will increase productivity and decrease human error. But why do so many automation projects end in failure?

OfficeAutomata’s Automation Roadmap will help you avoid common pitfalls and discover which of your processes are ready for automation. It begins with the three keys to automation success; Process Management, Process Intelligence and Intelligent Process Discovery.

Defining the initial steps of your Automation Journey

Process Discovery – The key to actionable data

Process Discovery is the essential element in Process Intelligence and Process Management.  This is where we uncover all the steps in the current processes and how consistently they are being performed across all users.

The limited tools for Process Discovery, are those used solely for finding automatable tasks. We qualify them as subjective discovery tools that come out with vague data. What exactly makes tasks have a high or low automation potential? It’s often not well defined, and what to do with that information almost never is. They focus on selling their automation product, rather than increasing efficiency company wide.

There is a wealth of actionable data missed by subjective discovery tools. Applied holistically, Process Discovery can be a source of honest objective information to increase productivity in all departments. It can identify which processes are ready to automate, require refining, or lack consistent usage.

If a Process Discovery tool finds tasks to automate then this outcome is a win for everyone. But if it doesn’t find anything to automate this is still a good thing. Now that the business processes have been measured, they can be improved.

Process Intelligence – The key to Automation potential

Does your company have the ability to standardize, improve and digitally transform your own processes?

Most companies do not… They lack a detailed insight into their workflows because they have no way to manipulate and measure those processes as they change.

Many are daunted by what they assume will be huge expenses, and massive productivity loss to catalog the processes they have now. Others don’t realize that Process intelligence is a critical element in automation success.

You can’t manage what you can’t measure, If you can’t measure it, you can’t improve it.

The first step to increase your process intelligence is choosing the right Process Discovery tool.

Process Management – the key to ROI

Process Management is a growing vertical of the digitalized workforce. Effectively managed business processes are central to any growing organization. In the age of business process automation it may soon function as a larger vision CoE across departments within an organization which manages and reviews all the processes.

What Low Automation Potential Means to Us

So you got a rating of “Low Automation Potential” from a subjective discovery tool. But what does that really mean? Likely it means you have missed one of these two steps on your Automation Roadmap.

Digital Transformation

A process that needs to undergo digital transformation is a process that is either partially or wholly performed manually. An example might be filling out redundant forms in MS Word templates saved on employee desk tops. A digitally transformed process would include a document processor holding the templates and automatically filling them.

Legacy systems are another key place where digital transformation is required. Software technology ages faster than most people realize and needs to be updated and replaced. The use of emulators and outdated software slow down the workflows.

Process Standardization

An unstandardized process is a process which has a high number of variations. In these situations there is no one way that the tasks are being performed. This is a killer for any automation attempt as we cannot pinpoint what needs to be done.

In most cases these processes are undocumented. Anytime it needs to be performed the employee has to make it up or figure it out. Often an unstandardized process will include elements of tribal knowledge as the employee seeks help from coworkers.

Identifying and standardizing these processes represent huge wins for departmental consistency and time efficiency (not to mention automation opportunity).

Intelligent Process Discovery – Where the data that moves the needle is found

When we implement Intelligent Process Discovery in an organization, we want to collect more data than just the steps in a process. We provide you the data you need for the whole of your Automation Journey. Our holistic approach identifies processes that are ready to automate, and pinpoints what caused your low automation potential.

OfficeAutomata provides the tools that businesses need to manage their workflow without interrupting employee throughput. We have created comprehensive dashboards to enable managers to identify where to start optimizing the processes they are responsible for.

If there is no oversight for processes there is no way to manage them.

Our dashboards provide data on time, cost, variations, frequency, volume, application connections, and more. This enables a more detailed view into how the workflow needs to be managed. It enables companies to identify where the biggest gains can be made through automation, or process development.

Would you like to start a conversation about managing your processes?  Contact us and we’ll be happy  to demonstrate how our platform can meet your Process Management and automation planning needs.

Arrange a Conversation 

Browse

Article by channel:

Read more articles tagged: Automation

Enabling Technologies