ASSESSING THE POTENTIAL OF ROBOTIC PROCESS AUTOMATION IN SUPPLY MANAGEMENT

Abstract

This thesis investigated the potential of Robotic Process Automation (RPA) at Wärtsilä Supply Management. The purpose of the study was to identify suitable processes for RPA and execute Proof of Concept (PoC) automations based on the selection criteria. Furthermore, a roadmap for governance and future deployment was implemented. This thesis was carried out as a case study for Wärtsilä Supply Management, which is at the point of implementing with RPA in its business processes.

Previous studies show that RPA can be utilized in high-volume, manual tasks that are repetitive and do not demand human judgement. So far, RPA has been utilized widely in transactional functions which mainly cover all the features mentioned before. Therefore, this study strived to give an answer to the question “what should be automated” instead of “what can be automated”.

The assessment potential was discovered in several functions within Supply Management. On top of processes that have a high volume, RPA was found feasible in tasks with a low volume but high value. Hence, PoC automations were implemented on both examples. The results show that RPA has great potential in Supply Management processes, once the operation and maintenance is systematically governed.