Robotic process automation, or RPA, is grabbing headlines across all segments of wholesale distribution—including industrial products.
But here’s what isn’t: The standardization required to employ it.
Right now, your people, systems, and procedures sprawl across an under-standardized spaghetti mess of traditional ERP technologies and “edge” applications: CRM, WMS, eCommerce, Finance, and more. In today’s world of disrupted supply and volatile customer demand, this under-standardization erodes margins, squanders sales effectiveness, and undermines customer service. It also conceals a diamond field of process-automation opportunities.
Where are the most valuable, near-term RPA-worthy use-cases hiding?
In plain sight—but, at “nano-scale”—lurking at the edges of existing technology. We’re talking about keystroke-level activities: scrape, paste, reconcile, transfer. These unquestioned, business-as-usual activities impose daily drudge-work burdens on employees using core ERP platforms such as SAP, JDE/Oracle, Sage, and others. Plus CRMs like Salesforce and MS Dynamics. And other common applications: Korber, Manhattan, Kronos, and Shopify. RPA bots can perform at least half of these mundane activities.
And breathtakingly valuable RPA use-cases hide deep in the under-standardized know-how, or tribal knowledge, of employees. Their well-intentioned but under-documented inconsistencies and workarounds generate thousands of hours of avoidable rework, reduce productivity, and extend cycle times—while impeding RPA implementation.
The important thing to understand about RPA is that, despite bot vendors’ claims, deploying this technology is not “plug-and-play” simple. Detailed standardization is required first.
In other words, RPA bots can only perform work that has been “designed for machinability”—a manufacturers’ term for automation-grade standardization. Without it, internal RPA projects typically fizzle out after fewer than ten bots. Meanwhile, hundreds of use-cases abound, in plain sight, innocently awaiting standardization.
RPA implementations that deliver massively valuable benefits standardize mundane activities at shockingly granular levels—all the way down to the “nano-scale,” including:
Standardizing these “nano-scale” tasks has historically been nobody’s job: Not businesses’. Not tech vendors’. Not conventional consultants’. But The Lab does it, daily.
Using our patented Nano-Scale Standardization methodology, The Lab delivers blazing-fast automation of processes that are currently held together, informally, with “human glue.” The performance gains are breathtaking.
We’re talking up to 45x human speed. We’re talking error rates of zero. We’re talking tens, even hundreds of thousands of hours of manual drudge work… eliminated forever.
We’re also talking about the most valuable processes that aren’t getting done—or done enough. Like cross-selling existing customers and prospecting for new ones. Imagine all that… automated.
The Lab installs bots, remotely, in just a matter of weeks.
How? We’ve standardized our own, nano-scale work activities. Our internal bots map client business processes. We use only the best U.S.-based RPA bot developers and project managers, all from our offices in Houston. Nothing’s outsourced or offshored. Ever.
Imagine all of your newly standardized data, appearing right before your eyes as a real-time visualization. Everything from up-to-the-second order-status updates, to potential pricing errors, to marketing-ready prospect lists, to root causes of customer churn, and much, much more.
But that’s just the beginning.
The Lab can install “lookout bots” to detect “red flags” in your data—and then send out real-time alerts to sales staff, customer account managers, and key executives! With Nano-Scale Standardization from The Lab, all this capability is at your fingertips.
The best way to appreciate the power of Nano-Scale Standardization—along with real RPA bots and business-intelligence data visualizations created especially for distributors—is to see them for yourself, live.
We invite you to book a free, no-obligation 30-minute screen-sharing demo with The Lab. You’ll see all of this in action. And get all your questions answered.
Simply call (201) 526-1200 or email info@thelabconsulting.com to book your demo today!
