Fortune 500 auto major implements RPA solution to transform its supply chain finance

Highlights
  • Customer

    US-based auto giant

  • Industry

    Automotive

Benefits
  • 100% unassisted automation of supplier set up for EDI based e-commerce
  • 60-person hours per month saved
  • 50% reduction in set up cycle time
  • Signification reduction in supply chain finance downtime related incidents
Business Situation

The client managed invoice payments for its suppliers through Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) transactions. The sourcing team would raise a request to the e-commerce team for onboarding a new supplier. The sourcing, material planning, and e-commerce team perform about ten-odd actions to set up the EDI account for a supplier. This process was a 100% manual, and the material planning team would miss out on setting up some steps that led to EDI transfer failures. These unanticipated failures led to delayed payments and adversely impacted procurement and manufacturing operations.

Business Challenges

Our client had three significant business challenges that prompted the need for a Robotic Process Automation (RPA) solution:

  • This process involved many steps and this was 100% manually driven.
  • It was a complex process that involved updation of several parameters in the system (e.g., EDI location code, translator code).
  • Any failure resulted in holding up of payment which disrupted the supplier finance and significantly impacted business continuity.
Birlasoft Solution

Birlasoft’s team of supply chain and automation experts developed the business process automation solution for the updation of supplier EDI translator codes. The key highlights of this solution were:

  • The RPA bot would run daily, which triggered a series of steps listed below.
  • The bot would read the emails sent by the e-commerce team to the material planning team.
  • By processing the information available in email, the bot would set up supplier EDI location and translator codes.
  • As a final step, the bot notifies the supplier, e-commerce, material planner, and the sourcing teams of the completion of the supplier set up.