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How RPA can automate the Supply Chain Industry.

former_member557885
Explorer
‎09-29-2020 6:15 AM

Introduction


Hello everyone myself Madhur Mehra I have been part of SAP and Supply Chain Industry for quite some time now working as Technical Consultant for Westernacher Consulting.

Supply Chain has always fascinated me the way it works and is being managed, imagine you placing a simple order on Amazon and getting your product on or before estimated time, ever thought what planning and management goes behind to deliver customer product on time or how your product gets assembled in different parts of the world and finally is being routed to you as a final product.

Automation is another big thing which every industry now is looking to implement in their business process to make it more robust and effective by automating it and make it successfully run and complete by a robot without any human intervention

Being RPA Certified I am writing this Blog Post to help you understand how combining both Supply Chain and Automation can help in boosting the productivity of supply chain industry in big way as Supply Chain requires huge management and planning of products in advance and with Robot helping them in this will always be welcomed.

Note : This blog post will not talk about the management and planning process and will more focus on how we can use RPA to automate processes in Supply Chain via Robot which requires no human intervention.

What is Supply Chain?


Supply Chain if I explain is an in flow and out flow of product, information and transaction of money between customer and vendor simple right, you place an order from amazon then you receive information from amazon of estimated time of arrival of your product and once you receive your product you pay to Amazon.

This is a simple one to one customer vendor example but imagine Vendor has sub vendors(Retailers, Distributors) and sub vendors have their sub vendors the process becomes more and more complex indeed.


Supply Chain



What is Automation?


Automation in simple terms is building a Robot and commanding it to perform the set of activities in a defined manner which till now had been performed by humans so that humans can take care of other more productive tasks while robots can work in parallel and complete the activities on time.

Although there are multiple tools in the market for Automation like Uipath, BluePrism I will be using Uipath RPA for Automation.


Hello!



Process for Automation.


I will be showcasing here automating the complete SAP EWM Inbound Process which includes following steps:

  1. Creation of Purchase Order in ERP. (ME21N)

  2. Creation of Inbound Delivery in ERP. (VL31N)

  3. Distribution of Inbound Delivery from ERP to EWM. (VL31N)

  4. Check inbound delivery document in EWM.(/SCWM/PRDI)

  5. Select the Follow on functions and create the Warehouse Task.

  6. Get the Warehouse Request for Putaway from ERP.

  7. Provide the destination warehouse Bin where Putaway needs to happen and create a warehouse order which contains your warehouse task for Putaway.

  8. Log in into RF device, and confirm your Warehouse Order.(/SCWM/RFUI)

  9. Once done check if for your inbound delivery Goods Receipt is complete.(/SCWM/PRDI)

  10. Once done send the confirmation mail to user for GR Completion.


Now we will design a Robot using UiPath Studio tool which will follow the above mentioned steps and will execute the entire process without human intervention.

Below is the link for the Video which I have recorded showcasing created Robot in UIPATH studio performing above mentioned activities also the snapshot of the part of the flowchart designed in Studio for the same.

Link: https://youtu.be/p0xwcisojPk

Flowchart:


Uipath Studio Flowchart


 

Note: In this blog post will not be explaining how to design robot and flowchart in UIPATH Studio as the aim is to give everyone an overview of integration of RPA with SAP and how by building a Robot you can ease and enhance the productivity of any process.


Conclusion


This blog post is being deigned basically to give an overview on how RPA and SAP are working hand in hand to automate certain processes in SAP that requires no human intervention and the same in this blog post I have tried to explain by automating complete SAP EWM Inbound Process being processed by a Robot and not by a human.

Note



  • I am the owner of the link for the video.

  • I am the owner of all the content used in this blog post.

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