How does RPA lead in utility automation

Today, robotic process automation (RPA) is growing fast, with Gartner forecasting 57% growth in the RPA business in 2019. The utility sector, in particular, will see explosive growth in Rpas.

The RPA hits a sore spot in the utility sector

Most of the urban public utilities in China are funded by the state or city finance. The way of operation and management varies according to the nature of public utilities and the specific situation of the city. Urban tap water, electric power, gas, heat supply and public transportation shall be under the leadership of the public utility departments subordinate to the municipal governments and operated by independent specialized companies, which shall be subject to the economic calculation system.

Utilities are usually customer-centric businesses, and everyone in a city depends on these services to meet their daily needs. However, the traditional operating system or software platform deployed internally is usually designed uniformly for a certain work, so some operations such as reports and data calculation usually need manual operation. Given the amount of data processing that takes place every day, efficiency and accuracy will be unavoidable issues. And this often affects everyone who lives in cities.

Benefits of applying RPA in the utility domain

Advantages of RPA in utilities ● Cost savings by performing multiple full-time human hours (FTES) activities ● Minimizes errors and reduces turnaround time to resolve customer problems ● facilitates rapid scale during disasters and crises ● ADAPTS quickly to changing policy changes in the industry…

Case from the power industry

●RPA can integrate SCADA and GIS systems Often, power companies need to shut off power to certain parts of the grid before performing any maintenance or repair. Clients must manually log in to multiple systems to confirm that specific portions of the grid can be disconnected. Any human error in the process exposes the organization to large fines and potential risks to life and property. RPA, in a “plug-in” manner, simulates manual operations and automates logins to SCADA, GIS and custom development systems in core engineering systems to check for possible problems without intruding into the utility’s existing IT systems. The results are presented to the network engineer for final decision. The whole process took less than two minutes, compared with 15 minutes or more previously done manually.

● Use RPA to link external portals to internal SAP systems when external agencies publish work details that must be manually extracted by power company employees and create internal work orders, the process would be complicated without an API. With this, the RPA can immediately retrieve the published job details and initiate a workflow to create a new work order in the internal SAP system. It effectively simplifies workflows, automates mundane tasks such as monitoring websites and creating worksheets, freeing employees from these low-value-added tasks.

That’s why RPA can be a great tool to help utilities, not just utilities, manage data effectively and enhance the customer experience. More and more utilities will also realize the value of RPA in two ways, 1. 2. There has been a significant increase in citizen-centered services. The emergence of RPA is bound to have a significant impact on the field of public utilities.