General Motors RPA Program – Key Stats and Key Deployment Methodology

In 2004, General Motors went live with shared services, and ten years later, they launched their Global Business Services. 2016 marked two significant events for GM: they took their GBS to a 2.0 generation, and they initiated their RPA program. Their RPA journey had started.

Key Stats:

The team started by scoping out the processes that were suitable for roboticizing. They identified 50. After selecting Automation Anywhere, they went live with their first bot in March 2017.

Over a year on, the General Motors team is live with 28 bots, another 17 are in deployment and 36 are in development – 81 in total. But their view is one shouldn’t measure scale or benefits by the number of bots. Instead, the key metrics are:

• Number of FTEs saved
• Dollars saved, and really importantly, 
• Number of hours automated

By June 2018, General Motors had saved $1 million and 20 FTEs.  Their pilot had delivered 54 hours in savings. Their goal is that between 2018 and 2020 they will have saved 250,000 hours through their RPA program.

Key Deployment Methodology:

The clamor for deploying robots can be felt across teams piloting bots. Once stakeholders see what robots can do, everyone wants to have their tasks roboticized. So how do you go about deploying your RPA program in a measured yet exciting way, and make the “right” decisions regarding your RPA pipeline? 

Here is General Motor’s approach:

• They have a Committee that makes decisions on prioritization.
• This Committee meets monthly to assess and decide
• Deciding factors will include Size, Complexity, Risk and ROI.

The methodology applied to Assessing the Opportunity to Going Live is:

Define:

• Assessment of Opportunity
• IT System feasibility
• Evaluate Existing Tools
• Evaluate Current Desktop Procedures

Design:

• Validate Current Desktop Procedure
• Understand at a Transaction Level Every Step Being Performed
• Value Summary Creation
• Bot Design Review

Develop:

• Agile Approach
• Develop RPA Solution Utilizing Coding Standard
• Develop/Unit Test throughout the Development Process
• SME Involvement throughout
• Code Review

Test:

• Integration Testing in RPA Environment
• Business Approval
• Creation of RPA Design Documents

Deploy/Monitor:

• Update Process/Procedure Documents
• Attestation Process
• Change Management
• Support Escalation

 

General Motors says “prioritization” is key to your program, and governance around this needs to be robust.