The challenge
Our client, a waste management company, provides environmental services to municipal, residential, commercial, industrial and institutional customers across North America. The organization had purchase order (PO) creation and receiving processes, and vendor creation processes that were largely manual, involving multiple systems and data entry.
The company was looking for an automation partner that could aid in enhancing the efficiency and accuracy of these critical procurement processes while minimizing the requirement for human involvement.
The TELUS Digital solution
With the help of TELUS Digital, the client adopted RPA technology in the form of intelligent bots to optimize the following:
Purchase order creation
The client’s initial process for the creation of a PO involved several manual steps, including checking component availability, requesting items not in stock, manually entering vendor and part details into various order management applications and more.
The seamless integration of a bot with the client’s inventory systems effectively eliminated the need for manual part availability checks. This deployment allowed PO requests to be autonomously updated in all applications, while efficiently incorporating all vital vendor details.
Purchase order receiving
The client’s post-receipt process had a number of manual requirements to accurately manage inventory. A bot was designed to autonomously access relevant POs, record the quantity of received parts and upload necessary documents within multiple applications.
Vendor creation
When onboarding new vendors, the client’s employees were responsible for the time-consuming task of entering all relevant vendor information into its systems. With our RPA solution, employees now have the convenience of providing the necessary vendor details to a bot that automates the entire registration process across all systems. This automation not only expedites the vendor onboarding process, but also significantly reduces the potential for human error.
The results
TELUS Digital’s RPA implementation streamlined the client’s procurement operations, improving overall supplier relationships with a number of other key benefits, including:
Efficiency: The RPA bots significantly reduced the manual effort required for PO creation and receiving, as well as the vendor creation process. Average time per transaction decreased from five minutes to three and a half minutes.
Accuracy: Errors associated with manual data entry were reduced, ensuring that new vendors were integrated into the procurement workflow with precision.
Scalability: The client can now onboard new vendors without significant human effort.
Cost savings: The decrease in labor costs and improved resource allocation resulted in the client realizing annual savings of $478,000.
