Many essential operational tasks are, in the end, repetitive: for example, moving data from one application to another; ensuring that data is in all the right fields; and then distributing that data to the right people. While critical, these tasks consume precious resources. Due to this reality, increased automation has been a long-sought-after goal for transportation and logistics providers. Technologists and business leaders approach this challenge with the mindset, “If a task is being performed more than once a day, it should be automated,” as they seek to increase efficiencies, reduce costs, and free their workforce to tackle more strategic and higher-value activities.
In this new article in JOC.com, Russ Felker, GlobalTranz’s CTO, explains how GlobalTranz’s efforts to implement increased automation via Robotic Process Automation (RPA) have delivered on the promises and impacts of automation:
“You get efficiency gains from automation, but the biggest thing we get is that it’s freeing up the time to be more strategic and more relationship-based than they are doing these rote tasks.”
The need to better position people to connect with customers and partners has been pushed even more to the fore by the COVID-19 pandemic, where Felker said it’s clear that “relationships are what makes a business solid, in a boom or a bust.”
“The ups and downs are made better by the quality of the relationships,” he said. “Automation frees up people to be with customers [virtually] and that’s the biggest benefit.”
GlobalTranz’s implementation of RPA has had dramatic results:
“Before building bots to automate the collection of that information, Felker said GlobalTranz estimates it devoted 139 days’ worth of time annually, per person, to pull track-and-trace information.
“Even if it takes us 20 days to retrain an employee to do something else, that’s still 120 days we’ve gotten back,” he said. “GlobalTranz has continued to sign business [since the COVID-19 outbreak]. RPA has provided a way to keep that growth without having to add staff.”
To read the full article, please click here.