For decades, manufacturing companies have been striving for greater operational efficiency and looking for new ways to reduce manual labor, not only on the factory floor but also in the back office. The implementation of robotic process automation (RPA) technology has enabled companies to achieve administrative workflow optimization that previously were unattainable and thus reduce business costs.
By deploying RPA bots that can mimic human actions in computerized systems, manufacturers can optimize a wide range of clerical processes, from invoice processing to BOM updating. Fueled by AI and ML technologies becoming more mainstream, RPA evolves rapidly, which enables manufacturers to unlock even more promising automation opportunities and achieve better ROI from RPA adoption.
Below, we highlight popular manufacturing use cases in RPA to show how technology has already transformed manufacturing businesses and explore what to expect from RPA in manufacturing in the near future.
The Most Popular RPA Use Cases in Manufacturing
Over the past years, hundreds of manufacturing companies around the globe have been implementing and using RPA technology successfully. Here are the examples of the most common RPA applications in manufacturing:
Procurement management: Manual procurement processes are typically time-consuming, especially if a company has to deal with dozens or even hundreds of suppliers. RPA bots implementation enables manufacturers to optimize rule-based procurement activities, from procurement contract generation and invoice processing to account opening for new suppliers in corporate ERP or vendor management systems.
Example: The procurement team at Komatsu Australia, a sub-branch of Japanese heavy equipment manufacturing company, had to process more than 52,000 vendor invoices annually, which was too challenging, given that many of these invoices also had to be corrected manually. After implementing RPA for automated invoice validating against purchase orders, the company was able to save 300 employees’ work hours per year for each supplier.
Inventory management: Inventory management is another laborious process that can be streamlined with the help of RPA. For example, RPA bots can automatically update stock levels in corporate inventory management software by extracting data from supplier bills and entering it into an inventory management system.
Example: Terreal, a French manufacturer of terracotta roofing tiles, implemented RPA technology to optimize pallet inventory tracking process. Deploying a bot that extracts data from supplier bills and inputs it into SAP helped the company save 730 labor hours per year and achieve 100% inventory data accuracy.
Accounting optimization: Accounting teams in the manufacturing industry have to process large volumes of financial data, which can be exhausting if done manually. So instead, manufacturers can implement RPA software to automate clerical accounting processes, and bots will extract financial data from documents and enter it into corporate systems, generate customer invoices, and complete other routine tasks.
Example: Synergy, an Australian electricity generator manufacturer, had relied on a third-party contractor to review and correct billing exceptions, which was too costly. Implementing an RPA bot that retrieves billing exceptions from SAP and reviews them automatically in accordance with established corporate policy helped Synergy save $2.3 million annually.
Bill-of-materials management: Creating new BOMs and updating existing ones can be labor-intensive, especially if the manufacturing company is relatively large. RPA bots can be used to automate these activities, quickly extracting ingredient names, part numbers and other data from product specifications and inventory records and using them to create and update BOMs.
Example: British American Tobacco, a UK-based tobacco and cigarette manufacturer, has deployed a set of three RPA bots to automate labor-intensive operations, with one of them transferring BOM data to the SAP ERP system. The automation of BOM data transfer might help British American Tobacco save nearly 130 labor hours a week, while the overall automation of processes with the help of RPA bots has already helped British American Tobacco save more than 230,000 labor hours.
What Does the Future Hold for RPA in Manufacturing?
Here are some notable trends that will influence manufacturing robotic process automation solutions in 2025 and beyond.
Intelligent process automation: More and more companies are complementing their RPA solutions with AI technology and implementing AI-enabled bots augmented with computer vision, natural language processing, speech recognition, optical character recognition and other advanced capabilities. These bots can work with any document format, process both structured and unstructured data, and transfer it between systems and databases, which makes them valuable assistants to employees in many more complicated processes, from optimizing logistics routes and predicting inventory demand to creating new product designs.
LG Chem, a Korean chemical company, deployed an RPA bot complemented with AI to streamline processing and extracting data from different types of documents. For example, the company’s logistics department uses a bot to automatically recognize invoices and compare image data included with these invoices with the figures reflected on the supplier portal. Overall, the implementation of intelligent automation helped the company reduce document processing time by 70%.
Citizen development: Citizen development, or delegating the creation of new automation scripts and deployment of bots to business users, is another RPA trend transforming the manufacturing industry. By investing in low-code and no-code RPA tools, a manufacturer can grant employees this capability, which can enable more rapid deployment of bots, foster a culture of innovation within the company and reduce the burden on the internal IT team.
Wesco, a global electric and industrial equipment manufacturer, has been investing in citizen development for several years already, and today, there are more than 200 citizen developers across all company departments. Automations created by these citizen developers help Wesco save more than 100,000+ work hours annually.
AI-powered process discovery: Using AI technology, manufacturers can identify processes suitable for automation more efficiently, which can be critical for accelerating RPA adoption and increasing the value derived from the technology. For example, Vale, a Brazilian mining and manufacturing company, used an AI-powered process discovery solution to identify processes for automation, which was 89% faster compared to traditional discovery methods. The following automations helped Vale save $5 million and 121,000 work hours annually.
RPA continues to prove beneficial in the manufacturing industry, helping companies reduce paperwork and streamline task handling across numerous business functions. As the RPA technology evolves, manufacturers can get even more significant business advantages from their RPA implementations.
A reliable technology partner can help you implement RPA and have it bring value at a lower time and costs. For instance, experienced RPA consultants can analyze your manufacturing operations to help you identify the processes most suitable for RPA transformation and deliver secure and scalable RPA bots tailored to your company’s unique needs.
Roman Davydov is a Technology Observer at Itransition with more than five years of experience in the IT industry. Davydov monitors and analyzes the latest technology trends, helping businesses make informed software decisions that align with their strategic goals.
