Scania’s interest in robotic process automation started a while back. The company set out to explore the development of workflows with an open mind and to identify which processes could require robotic automation and thus be beneficial to Scania and its employees. The challenge in the company’s financial administration was the routine work that took employees a lot of time and could be delegated to a robot.
“We investigated tasks that were repeated daily, were in a specific format and clearly took about 2–3 hours of work daily from people”, says Scania Retail Manager Riitta Talvitie.
The goal was to improve Scania’s customer service in processes that often repeat in the same format. This would also contribute to the efficiency of employees, reduce errors and improve the quality of customer service. As a company, Scania also strives to evolve with digitalisation, with respect to both its products and its business, and this is what RPA enables.
Instead of robots, Scania used the automation in existing programs, as this was an easier way to work than building a completely new robotic process automation solution. However, linking one-spot solutions into whole operating processes is often challenging or even impossible.
robotics
Riitta Talvitie, Retail Manager, Scania Suomi Oy
Task: Setting up a vendor.
Liability and outcome: Murmeli creates new vendors in Scania’s financial administration system.
A request to create a new vendor is sent to the helpdesk system, and the robot views it there.
In the case of an approved new vendor, Murmeli fills in the information in the financial administration system.
The robot is run twice a day.
Scania has advanced RPA solutions in place in the group, but Scania Finland locally wanted a solution that enables easy starting with a reasonable initial investment. This way it is possible to verify the functionality of the technology quickly and efficiently. For this reason, Digia was selected for the project, making it easy to get the automation project moving.
“Digia addressed the issue through a service model. In RPA solutions, the initial investment is often expensive and requires either a consultant or an in-house developer to drive automation forward. This always poses its own challenges”, says IT Manager Tomi Lehtinen.
Scania has been very satisfied with their cooperation with Digia. Because the RPA solution was offered as a service, they as customers only needed to say what they wanted from the automation and to monitor the development. According to Lehtinen, cooperation between different partners has also worked really smoothly. He has previously been involved in RPA projects in his previous work and feels that this time the cost and the benefits from the automation have clearly gone hand in hand. At the heart of the introduction of the automation solution was the idea of all the things that Scania could use it for, now and in the future.
At the moment, the company is working on a task related to an account set-up application, which is continuously progressing towards completion. Scania also has ideas for new automated tasks.
It is a fact that robotic automation always requires human help. Nevertheless, robotic process automation can raise concerns that people’s work will be completely transferred to robots. From the beginning, Scania has had an understanding that the purpose of a robot is to free up time for employees for tasks that are essential. Nevertheless, change always brings a little doubt.
“I have always believed that the things that a robot does are things that no one really wants to do. The robot sure does take jobs, but only those that no one is interested in doing – monotonous and self-repeating tasks. Once they are moved out of the way, employees can focus on more challenging tasks that require more time”, Lehtinen says.
Many experts of different tasks have been engaged in the project, which has given them more insight into automation in general. Talvitie says that she noticed an increase in interest in the automation project as more people have been included in it. This has increased the enthusiasm to make the project work and beneficial to all.
By no means is Digia Scania’s sole partner in the robotic process automation project. Scania’s long-term partner Suomen Asiakastieto Oy has also participated in the next task related to the customer account creation application, which Murmeli will work on.
Asiakastieto’s role in Scania’s automation project has been to support the introduction of the Optimi credit decision model implemented a few years ago for browser use in the financial management system. The idea of automation started years ago because of the desire to reduce decisions and manual work and simplify the project.
“We are supporting integration. In the case of a credit decision model customised for a customer, we can adjust it, if necessary, according to the customer’s wishes, in such a way that it does not affect the implementation already done”, says Account Manager Anssi Herlin at Suomen Asiakastieto Oy.
Asiakastieto also provides the reporting for the credit decision model, enabling changes to be made and the functionality of the model to be monitored.
Herlin is positive about automation and says that he found the project with Scania very interesting. Asiakastieto’s involvement has also been facilitated by the fact that Digia has kept the project under control
and Asiakastieto has been kept constantly informed of the project’s progress. Thus, it has also been easier and quicker for Asiakastieto to react to changes. He has also considered it a positive thing that the customer’s wishes have been well taken into account by Digia.
A good partnership has been realised in many ways in the Scania automation project, with both Digia and Asiakastieto supporting it. Herlin has been involved in many integration projects and considers the most successful ones those that take the customer’s wishes into account as much as possible. He feels that the Scania project is a good example of a project that has gone very well for everyone involved, both in terms of communication and in terms of doing the work.
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