Article | 4.1.2021
Today's secret weapon in logistics lowers costs and improves service level
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Sisua Digital was interviewed in Chile’s leading C-Level magazine, Gerencia. Read on how our CEO in Latam, Alan Berstein, describes automation’s potential and Sisua’s contribution in logistics.
Sisua Digital, a pioneer in robotic automation technology, is already consolidating its position in the Chilean and Latin American markets. This technology, relatively new to the logistics industry, is becoming an attractive alternative for companies that want to improve their productivity, generate cost savings and improve their customer service.
Due to the pandemic, logistics with its networks and distribution centers in Chile have undergone transformations and reached their design limits, in addition to the fact that logistics itself has changed because of new consumers needs.
These logistics facilities, over the last 30 years, have greatly modernized and their work has become a vital part of the business for most companies.
"At the beginning of the 90s this trend began, and today we have very modern distribution centers, especially in the Retail and mass production sector, which have WMS systems, automatic sorters, shuttles, physical robots and other technologies", explains Alan Berstein, CEO of Sisua Digital Latam.
However, with the arrival of the coronavirus pandemic and the explosive increase in e-commerce, not all distribution centers and warehouses have been able to cope with the demands imposed by these situations, because they have often been surpassed or simply not designed for this context, due to market demands and, more importantly, due to changes in consumer habits.
“The current context has led Chile to have a more decentralized logistics, since the preferred and even mandatory sales channel in this period has been online, and adding to that the increasing requirements from buyers, who have modified their habits, being more demanding in knowing the status of their order (anxiety) and also in the speed and accuracy of accomplishing the delivery times", adds Berstein.
All these changes have put great pressure on the logistics and supply chain, which now need to be much more agile and operate practically in real time.
"Nowadays, consumers are not loyal to suppliers, since the offering on the web is quite wide and the factors of dispatch and service time, play an essential role in the buyers’ choice, often becoming the added value of some companies,” says Berstein.
All of the above is in relation to logistics and supply chain, and companies have implemented large IT systems like ERP, WMS, TMS, just to name a few. However, today all systems must be changed or adjusted to achieve the results required by the pressures from industry and customers.
– How to make changes to one system without affecting another?
– How to make changes to all simultaneously to add functionalities without touching them so as not to cause additional problems?
– How can it be done in a fraction of the time and cost?
Sisua Digital has an answer and solution for all these questions, through its methodology and approved technology from Finland.
Sisua supports logistics
Sisua Digital became a pioneer in Chile in offering Robotic Process Automation. This technology, relatively new to the logistics sector, is becoming an attractive alternative for companies that want to improve their productivity, generate cost savings and improve their customer service. It can do all of the above while reducing risks, time and costs compared to the traditional way.
Robotic process automation is the technology that allows a “robot” to emulate and integrate the actions of a human or digital interaction in digital systems to execute a business or operational process. In other words, Berstein explains, it’s a digital workforce, where robots capture data and manipulate existing applications in the same way that humans and systems do.
“Sisua robots are capable of imitating most of the actions human users do. They start sessions in applications, move files and folders, copy and paste data, fill out forms and extract structured and semi-structured data from documents and browsers, among other tasks ”, indicates the CEO of Sisua Digital Latam.
The advantage of these robots is that they perform interpretations, activate responses and communicate with other systems to operate in a wide range of repetitive and in many cases complex tasks. In addition, unlike other traditional IT solutions, robots allow organizations to automate at a fraction of the cost and time previously invested, using existing infrastructure – even if it is old (legacy system) – without causing interruptions to underlying systems, which would be very complex and expensive to replace.
“As Sisua Digital, our purpose is to create value in operations through cost and time efficient automation tools. We help our clients achieve a significant and real digital transformation”
Robotic Process Automation in practice
It is ideal for all the processes of a company. To graph its usefulness, we will focus on two areas, administrative and operational. Firstly, in administration and finance management, you can use this technology in your billing processes, receivables, records for reports, supplier management, incentive claims, fundraising and customer order management, among many others.
Meanwhile, in HR services, it is suitable for processes that require filling in, capturing data, updating and processing requests, increasing efficiency and profitability, such as data management, onboarding or exit of personnel, payroll, compliance and reports, etc.
For the supply chain, it improves lead time, speed, capacity and efficiency of assets and resources. It also increases the satisfaction of customers, suppliers and employees. Some processes where it can be implemented are: inventory management (stock), invoice and contract management, cargo management, supply and demand planning, returns management, and last mile, where there are still many needs.
What are the benefits of RPA in logistics?
Higher productivity and operational efficiency
Automation increases speed and efficiency by shortening process life times and allowing processes to run 24/7.
Better customer and employee experience
Improving digital services and business processes increase the experience for customers and employees.
Increased revenue and greater cost savings
Automation creates immediate cost savings and payback time for automation is typically weeks to a few months.
Better quality of work and risk management
Automating tasks reduces errors.
Alan Berstein, CEO at Sisua Digital Latam