Automating Processes with Robotic Process Automation (RPA)

Products: Distribution of electrical installation materials

Employees: more than 700

Website: www.elektro-material.ch

Individual Solution for Repetitive Processes

Being able to access all data in real time, reducing manual work to a minimum and thereby accelerating all processes – that was an important goal for Elektro-Material AG with the introduction of SAP S/4HANA Cloud in the area of finance. After all, the leading wholesale company in the Swiss electrical installation industry wants to guarantee not only a top sales service at all times but also rapid cycle times for its products comprising around 250,000 articles. And the finance department plays an important role here. Integration into a global company, the Rexel Group, also placed high demands on accounting.

“During the exploration phase of the SAP S/4HANA Cloud introduction, it was already clear that the solution was going to lead us safely into the future,” reports Adrian Maegerle, Business Engineer, Elektro-Material AG. “Because of our diverse system landscape, the solution for complete digitalization of all process steps did not go far enough with just asset accounting and account statement uploading. We needed an innovative solution.”

RPA Ensures Suitable Automation

This was quickly found: The NTT DATA Business Solutions team suggested the development of a software bot (RPA) with UiPath for assets accounting and automatic uploading of account statements, as it is particularly suitable for repetitive tasks and can accelerate significantly.

In the area of asset accounting, each new asset is created in the system via an interface, and the associated invoice is also posted. Acquisition or disposal of assets is automatically processed according to clear parameters — fast, targeted and without errors.

Up to five account statements need to be uploaded per day. Up until now, this was a manual task that took up to one hour per day per account statement. That was a wait time that employees could be using more productively. “No employee should have to worry about when and how an account statement gets loaded into the system,” says Adrian Maegerle. “If this process gets automated as well, valuable human resources are freed up that can be much better utilized.” The software bot now takes care of uploading account statements to SAP. There they are read, posted in SAP and balanced with open customer and creditor items by means of certain rules. This happens overnight.

At the same time, Elektro-Material thereby achieves a 95% settlement rate. When employees come to work in the morning, they can start right in on processing the remaining 5% of payments that require clarification. Customers’ credit limits are also always up-to-date now.

Armend Imeri, Head of Accounting, Elektro-Material AG explains: “Our new digital colleagues have really proven themselves. They relieve us of repetitive tasks and complete them overnight. The reduces our error rate and cycle times. Above all, we have more time for demanding, profitable tasks. Our whole team has recognized these upsides, and everyone contributed to driving the automation process forward.”

Adrian Maegerle adds: “We definitely see a lot of potential for additional bots, in other departments as well. We are now looking to see where additional process automation with RPA makes sense. RPA provides added value for our company.”