RPA Solutions: Setting the Supply Chain Management Costs Right

The supply chain is the backbone of any economy. But, it has costs that make it an expensive affair. Nevertheless, the fact that a well-maintained supply chains fosters operational efficiency, communication, as well as decision making, renders it something worth investing in. And when you invest, that investment should be able to fetch you a great ROI. RPA solutions can do that for your business.

Robotic process automation can do a lot for supply chain management to make it cost-effective. For starters, it serves to automate manual processes that are repetitive and do not really need human discretion. It can, in fact, even revolutionize process like vendor selection that do need human discretion.

So, here are a few ways in which RPA solutions can set supply chain costs right.

Automating Inventory Management:

Inventory and its management form the core of supply chain management. A supply chain that is opaque serves no value to neither party, neither the manufacturers nor the suppliers. Transparent information about the status and movement of stock is crucial to balance the demand and supply scale.

Automating inventory management helps businesses keep a tab on the levels of inventory. And not just that; it can also generate and send out reports to the concerned managers, and prompt in case stocks are low or surplus and even place orders when stock is short. It can also help you predict the optimum inventory level that you must maintain, based on historical data.

Vendor Selection:

Traditionally a manual process, vendor selection can be revolutionized with the help of robotic process automation companies. From quotation request to communicating with the vendors, scrutinizing and analyzing vendor documents, evaluating applications, cross-checking credits, and eventually finalizing the vendor-all can be totally automated and drastically sped up through RPA companies.

This frees up the human resources for more discretionary jobs like preparing the list of prospective vendors and holding consequent in-person meetings/negotiations if needed.

Order and Payment Processing:

Placing orders and processing them is an integral part of supply chain management. Right from product selection to processing payments for the same, and confirming order placement, if done manually, takes a serious amount of time and paperwork, and is prone to error when it comes to numbers.

Robotic process automation vendors in India can help you with setting up a system wherein all the information is digitized and just has to be ingested, sourced, and processed through the company's database. The inventory management system can be integrated into source inventory information and payment gateways to make and process payments. Notifications can also be sent to all concerned parties through the same system.

Shipment Status Communication:

As much as the stock in the warehouse, businesses also need to manage the stock in movement. When customers enquire about the status of the shipped goods, procuring the information manually is a lengthy process that only lowers the level of customer experience.

Robotic Process Automation companies in India can help you automate the entire process from receiving customer enquiries, to analyzing them, accessing the ERP system, fetching the shipment status and communicating it to the customer. This makes human intervention necessary only if there is a particular problem on the customer's end. This saves time and thus man hours spent in redundant work.

Final Words:

RPA solutions are already on their way to making supply chain management a cost-effective affair. However, not all businesses have the exact same needs. Here is where expert advice from robotic process automation companies can help.

If you are looking for a customized RPA solution to your supply chain management challenges, we'd be happy to help.