5 lessons learned from our recent robotics process automation implementation

As West Monroe helps clients implement RPA through a combination of change management, technology, and workforce consulting, we decided to try it for ourselves. Over a recent couple of months, we incorporated RPA into our new-employee onboarding process and accounts receivable process. We wanted to know exactly the type of hurdles, challenges, and rewards that come from an RPA implementation. And we are happy to share the following lessons learned, fresh from our own experience. 

Understand the complexity of the processes you want to automate well in advance.

Today, rules-based processes are prime candidates for automation. However, these same processes can cause complications for RPA software implementations when complexity is not completely understood and documented. While people can make decisions by learning patterns, RPA software has difficulty mimicking this human ability. A process that is almost entirely rules-based but requires just one ambiguous decision may prohibit an RPA implementation from being effective. In addition, data entry processes that touch multiple applications can become increasingly complex to automate if the data format differs between systems.

There are workarounds for these nuances, but the resulting increase in process complexity can cause RPA software to become more tedious and costly to configure than continuing to use a human to perform the same task. While more complex processes requiring human decision-making may be automated by the robotic workforce in the coming years as machine learning becomes tightly coupled with RPA software, it may not make sense to automate now.

Host functional and technical design sessions to make sure business users and technology users are on the same page.

When evaluating processes to automate with RPA, process re-engineering is almost always recommended to increase the ease of implementation. The scale of these modifications, however, can vary. Factors such as data inputs required, pre-existing data standardization, number of system touches, and flexibility in the sequencing of tasks can influence the amount of upfront work required before configuration begins. 

For a seamless RPA implementation, it is important to manage the expectations of the project team by establishing a communication schedule that outlines the reasons for the process re-design and the actions required by the team. Change management is critical throughout the lifecycle of an RPA project to ensure that employees are properly prepared to take on new tasks that come with process re-design and the upcoming robot deployment. In contrast to most change management initiatives, RPA requires a robust change management plan before go-live, given the magnitude of change required by your teams. 

Over-test the robot to ensure it handles exceptions properly.

It is easy to start celebrating once your robot successfully automates a process for the first time. However, the real work begins in the testing phase to ensure the robot handles exceptions properly. There’s nothing worse than believing you have successfully deployed your first robot only to realize a week later that it fails when triggered on Employee X’s computer because her screen resolution is different from Employee Y’s. To ensure “robot sustainability,” use activities in the workflow configuration that give the robot instructions on what to do in case of errors or when encountering Condition B instead of Condition A. Finally, check, double check, and triple check that the process runs in all scenarios types before signing off on a successful implementation and handing over to the end user.

Growth must be kept in the back of your company’s mind. There are multiple ways to perform one objective, but some configurations are more conducive to scale than others. 

As companies grow and change, processes tend to evolve. Consider this example: A company has a centralized accounts receivable department that processes all invoices out of the corporate headquarters in Chicago. When configuring a robot to automate invoicing, the RPA implementation team instructs the robot to type “Chicago, IL” into the address line of the invoice being sent to the customer by hardcoding this deep into the workflow. Years later, the company expands and decides to divide accounts receivable operations into East Coast and West Coast departments, as business offerings have differentiated and unique invoicing procedures must be followed. The company must now go back into the workflow and re-configure the value typed on the address line to reflect this change because the original invoicing robot was not developed with scalability in mind. 

Although this is a minor theoretical example, there are countless scenarios where designing a robot to automate a task given the current situation could result in headaches down the road when change occurs. Based on our own experience, West Monroe recommends taking an agile, or iterative, approach to all RPA implementations – meaning every time a change or new exception is introduced to the process, the robot needs to be reprogrammed.

Achieving a return on your RPA investment

Robotic process automation, when implemented thoughtfully, can create tremendous value across your organization, as it has for ours. This value incudes:

West Monroe is assisting clients that are interested in taking advantage of robotic process automation capabilities by: