A short poll recently suggested that 3 x more shared services people had applied RPA to broken processes than hadn’t. I think we all agree, this really does go against the tenets of Continuous Improvement, and other key principals of shared services. Ask any reasonable shared services professional and they will tell you the same thing: Don’t automate a broken process! This adage is now DECADES old, and yet, with RPA now on the scene, we find ourselves bending the rules like the old days.
So – is it worth it? The short answer seems to be no. A Process and Transformation Lead from Oracle recently said to sharedserviceslink, “Asking technology to do something that should be improved first is never going to end well.” And three whole years ago, when RPA was still in nappies, Walmart RPA eloquently put it this way: robotizing a bad process “makes bad worse faster.”
Improve your process first, and then automate. In fact, according to many industry experts, the best outcome is to eliminate. Trying to automate a broken process normally results in different-looking problems, but problems nonetheless.
We all, however, agree that the combination of automation and process improvement wins the race. 6 Sigma expert Paul Ruggier says, “With an excellent process, you can get to 4 Sigma. But that’s your ceiling. With an excellent process plus automation, you can achieve 6 Sigma.”
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