We can’t create time but Automation can make time
Time is a fixed measure that none of us can change.
So, who would like more time to get work done?
There are deadlines and dependencies for many aspects of work, they exist to control the use of Time.
How does Automation help make time?
Automation delivers Capacity
Once a process is automated through the use of RPA (Robotic Process Automation), the manual work to perform the task is no longer required.
The tasks in the process are completed by a software robot. This releases the person who would otherwise perform the task.
Generally, once a process is automated, there can be any number of software robots deployed.
By working in parallel, each robot is releasing a person. If there were 5 people who worked on the process to deliver the workload, 5 robots could be used and the manual effort released from each person would be available for other work.
Clearly time becomes available for those workers to do something else.
Automation all Hours
As software robots can operate 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. There are a lot of processing hours available that do not match the hours when a person would previously have performed activities.
The potential to schedule and perform work outside of the typical office hours will depend on the dependencies on the process in terms of when it can start and when it must finish to avoid impacting subsequent processes.
In the scenario where the work of 5 people has been automated. Do the automations have to be executed in parallel?
On the assumption that a software robot completes work at the same speed as person (It is often much quicker), if the automation saved one hour of a person’s time that they usually performed at the start of the day (9:00 am). 5 robots could work in parallel and complete the work in comparable time, namely 10:00am.
If the work could start early, 1 robot starting at 5:00am could complete the work at 10:00am. Alternatively 1 robot starting at 9:00 could complete the work by 2:00 pm.
It may seem obvious, but once the time constrain of performing office processes during office working hours is removed, there can be real changes to the way business activity is organised.
In scenarios where the automation is focussed on the routine work (i.e. 80:20 – Routine:Special), by freeing the manual activity from the routine workload, the effort can be deployed on special workload which has not been automated. This results in the special cases, using manual work, being processed sooner than if there was no automation.
Quality Time from Automation
One of the benefits from Automation is the removal of human errors.
Each human error will require time to identify and time to resolve. The costs from each error can be a mixture of quantifiable direct cost but also quality costs in terms of reputational damage.
The hours of effort required to receive a notification of an error plus the effort to correct the issue, plus the internal effort to investigate and account for the correction activity, can result in large numbers.
The time release automation by error elimination can be considerable.
Overhead Time
Automation releases time from manual production activities but the IT operations to create an automation, deploy it, plus the work to perform maintenance and provide support for the automation, need to be considered. All of these activities consume hours of IT effort.
Time to “Get Around to it” – Capacity Time
There are often tasks in business that could be done but there is not time for people to get around to doing them.
Reconciliation and cross checking data between systems can fall into that category. Audit processes may do sample checks but often the scale of the challenge only comes to light when data is migrated to a new system.
When automation provides software robots that can work 168 hours per week, there is usually “Spare” capacity available from the core process that they are deployed to automate.
Using the “Spare” capacity to perform other automations that reconcile data between systems, can prevent long term issues that cause un-expected errors. It can be like “Looking for a needle in a Haystack”. It is the type of task that humans are poor at performing due to the concentration levels require, but they are type of tasks that are relatively easy to automate.
For more information on Robotic Process Automation (RPA) as well as Agentic Automation and the journey to implement automation please see our website: https://www.ether-solutions.co.uk/.
Manager’s Guide to Automation: https://www.ether-solutions.co.uk/managers-guide-to-automation-using-software-robots/
#businessbeyondautomation
Article Author
David Martin
Managing Director, Ether Solutions
