RPA Use Cases in

Manufacturing
Make your business What is RPA?
processes lean Robotic Process Automation (RPA) is a technology that
automates business processes by emulating a person
Most manufacturers already focus on eliminating material performing manual, repetitive tasks, and making
wastes — energy, water, etc. — to maximise efficiency. But are decisions based on pre-defined rules, allowing
you doing enough to squeeze out the inefficiencies? What employees to focus on the more sophisticated,
about wastes in business processes? higher-value tasks.

Robotic Process Automation (RPA) can help manufacturers cut

down several aspects of the 8 wastes of lean from their
business processes, including human errors.

Did you know that 23% of unplanned downtime in

manufacturing is caused by human error? Compared to RPA improves manufacturers’ competitiveness
other industries where rates can be as low as 9%, this is quite
high—but RPA can help with that. Reduced costs
Productivity boost (overtime, rework,
compliance, etc.)
Of manufacturers who have implemented RPA:
• 75% of the pilot tests have met or exceeded expectations
Better employee Better customer
• 83% achieved ROI in 12 months or less engagement experience

You, too, can benefit from this.

RPA Use Cases in Manufacturing 2

 Robotic Process
Automation (RPA) in
Manufacturing
Manufacturing operations are incredibly complex. Succeeding in the
manufacturing business means getting all the stars aligned: raw
materials, inventory, production planning, safety & health, quality
management, and so much more.

With such a wide range of business processes, where do you start

automating?

If you’re looking for automation ideas, you’re at the right place! In this
document, we’ve put together 39 ways to use RPA in various
business functions in manufacturing.

With these ideas as inspiration, you can then move on to assess which
of your organization’s processes are suitable for RPA. For more
details, check out our free RPA Quick Start Guide and free white
paper Selecting the Right Processes for RPA.

RPA Use Cases in Manufacturing 3

 39 RPA Use Cases for
Manufacturing Functions
Supply Chain Management

Production Planning & Control

Maintenance

Quality Management

Logistics & Distribution

Research & Development

RPA Use Cases in Manufacturing 4

Supply Chain
Returning of Rejected
Materials to Supplier

Management
Goods Receipts Automatically prepare Debit
Notes and Dispatch Notes, as
well as emailing rejection details
Automatically extract data from
to suppliers using pre-defined
delivery orders and create
format, such as the CAPA
goods receipt notes (GRN)
(corrective actions and
Bill of Materials records for matching against
preventive actions) template
purchase orders (POs) and
Create accurate and detailed invoice
bills of materials (BOM) with all
the parts and packaging
Commodity price materials needed to create a
tracking finished product, so
procurement can better support Lead Time/Order
Keep track of commodity prices development or production Turnaround Tracking
published on multiple websites efforts
and automatically prepare trend Automatically and regularly
reports to facilitate planning generate reports to track the
and analysis delivery lead time, and whether
suppliers are meeting the
agreed lead time based on pre-
defined rules.

RPA Use Cases in Manufacturing 5

Supplier rating by Inventory Cycle Count
stakeholders Slow & Non-moving
Inventory Monitoring
Automatically and periodically Material Management Generate lists of items to be
send out prepared forms to counted based on pre-defined
Monitor items in inventory and
various stakeholders across the Use pre-defined rules to analyse rules and methods, then inform
automatically notify
value chain, collate the inventory records for slow- stores ahead of conducting
procurement or production
responses, prepare a report and moving SKUs, prepare and inventory cycle counts. Monitor
when the inventory falls below
calculate the vendor rating. If share the report with key and track the results against
the pre-defined threshold, in
necessary, emails can also be stakeholders to consider for past cycle counts and generate
order to prevent stockouts.
sent automatically to vendors or liquidation. reports to facilitate reviews.
internal stakeholders.

Supplier Performance Inventory

Tracking Reconciliation
Integrate supplier performance Reconcile physical inventory
data across disparate systems to count during stock takes against
form a holistic picture for the quantities available in the
supplier performance review. system. After approval,
Create dashboards and automatically update the
scorecards to analyse these variation in quantity in the ERP
updated data over multiple system.
periods.

RPA Use Cases in Manufacturing 6

 Generating & Capacity planning &
updating production revision update
plan, etc.
Collate information from various
Using information from sales
Daily shopfloor sources to identify bottlenecks
plans, as well as certain pre-
and devise plans to
performance defined rules, to generate the
debottleneck. Revise machine
monitoring corresponding production
capacities in multiple
plans and dispatch plans.
Automatically collate data from documents/systems when
various sources and business improvements are made.
Automatically update various
functions, and prepare various related plans when there are
reports that lets you monitor the changes in the sales plan.
shopfloor - Inventory turn, OTIF,
machine down-time, first-pass
yield, OEE, safety, etc. Manpower planning
Converting monthly
Using pre-defined rules,
plans into weekly and
automate allocation of workers
daily plans to the right jobs and machines
Based on monthly plans and by matching their skills to the

Production
pre-defined rules, automaticaly machine running plan for
generate schedules for every multiple shifts.
machine or production line in

Planning & Control

each shift.

RPA Use Cases in Manufacturing 7

 Maintenance
Maintenance cost
report
Automate preparation of
Managing Preventive
reports to compare and analyse
maintenance costs — budget vs
Maintenance Activities
actual. The report can then be Automatically trigger preventive
emailed automatically to the
Spare Parts Planning
maintenance (PM) based on
maintenance manager to assess data and pre-defined rules,
& Ordering
and make decisions for cost create work orders, allocate the Automatically collate data on
control. work to technicians, and spares consumption. Combine
generate weekly compliance this with current stock level, on-
report for monitoring. order quantity, and other
information from the ERP to
trigger the timing and quantity
of replenishments, including
issuing POs to approved
vendors and term contractors
depending on procurement
policies.

RPA Use Cases in Manufacturing 8

 Instruments and Corrective & Scrap Note for
COPQ Calculation
gauge calibration Preventive Action Material Disposal
Track the status of equipment Get consistent visibility on the
Implementation and Generate scrap note for moving
calibration against due cost of poor quality (COPQ) by Tracking material from the shop floor to
dates/expiry dates and send automatic, periodic updating of the scrap yard, and for the
Periodically and automatically
automatic reminders to the right calculation based on data disposal from the scrap yard by
collate information from various
stakeholders for follow-up, or collated from multiple sources a vendor
sources to track the status of
automatically create and send
CAPA implementation and
work orders to vendors to
escalate non-compliance to the
perform calibration work.
right stakeholder for follow-up

Customer complaint
resolution & response
Scrap Reporting
Automate data collation from
Generate reports on items that
Recording and various IT systems to facilitate
are rejected or need rework and following up on complaint investigation and for
customer complaints reporting back to customers
conduct analysis

Input details of customer

Quality complaints in the system and

email or notify the appropriate
stakeholders to follow up and

Management take action

RPA Use Cases in Manufacturing 9

Stock Transfer Order
(STO)
Vehicle tracking and
performance Logistics &
Distribution
Creation of Stock Transfer Order monitoring Logistics Partner
(STO) requesting for stock items Performance
Real time tracking of shipments,
to be moved into other
points of docking,
Monitoring
premises for further processing
issues/queries raised at points Monitoring the performance of
of docking, etc. to analyse logistics partners based on pre-
performance, costs, and other defined assessment criteria
metrics that can be used to such as transit time, damages,
measure and improve efficiency and more

Post Goods Issue (PGI)

Processing Post Goods Issue Material Transfer

(PGI) requests when goods are Tracking Logistics Costs and
issued or picked for delivery to Premium
customers so that the stock Reports for tracking material
transfers from one location to
Freight Tracking
position in the system is
updated accordingly another and the costs
Updating of reports or
associated with the transfers
dashboards to track logistics
costs, premium freight costs,
etc.

RPA Use Cases in Manufacturing 10

Monitoring and
review of NPD status Engineering Change
Research &
Track and monitor the progress
of each product development
Note Management
Have Engineering Change Note
Development
against pre-defined timelines (ECN) modifications
automatically updated in Product Quality
multiple applications to cut Planning
down repetitive data entry
Generate reports on various
Tracking Project
tests performed on the Expense against
prototypes and analyse the Budget
results based on pre-defined
performance models. Periodically and automatically
Market Research/ collate cost information. Track
Benchmarking Voice of Customer project costs against each
Study for NPD Inputs project's budget to better
Aggregating data from the
internet (competitors' websites, manage costs during the
Regularly collect customers'
technology providers' websites, Documentations for product development.
inputs by automating Voice of
or other third-party websites) to Customer study to have filing new patents
provide inputs on new products constant feedback and input for Prepare documents for patent
and processes new product development filing by collating data from
(NPD) and improvements multiple sources

RPA Use Cases in Manufacturing 11

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RPA Use Cases in Finance 12