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TL;DR: Using a trio of technologies for hyperautomation from SAP, citizen developers can build fully automated CAPEX processes in just a few minutes, without using any code. Contact your SAP AE to find out more.




Capital Expenditure (often referred to as CAPEX) is when money is spent by a business or organization to acquire or maintain fixed assets, such as land, buildings, and equipment. Traditionally, CAPEX processes involve multiple manual workflows and several communication channels between teams, resulting in an overall operation that is inefficient.

However, with a combination of products in development from the SAP Business Technology Platform, it’s possible to build a fully automated and highly efficient process. Manual processes can be digitally transformed without writing a single line of code.

In this demo video, we simulate a CAPEX request scenario with two factories – one based in Russia and the other in the Netherlands. We want to evaluate the automation level of their existing CAPEX processes to look for optimization opportunities.



To start with, we use Process Discovery to analyze their performances. We can see here that the Russian factory is performing well and has achieved an automation rate of almost 94%, meaning that 94% of their process is automated.


However, the factory in the Netherlands isn’t performing as well. In fact, it currently has a zero percent automation rate, meaning that every time they buy new machines or repair existing ones, they’re still using an entirely manual process.


Taking this information, how can we help the factory in the Netherlands improve their CAPEX automation rate? That’s where a combination of products on the SAP Business Technology platform comes in, namely SAP Intelligent Robotic Process Automation, SAP Workflow Management, and SAP Ruum – the Business Process Improvement trio.

Starting with SAP Intelligent Robotic Process Automation, you can build a bot that collects data from the specification PDF of the machine, rather than relying on a person to look up this information.


Every time the bot collects this data, a CAPEX workflow on SAP Cloud Platform is then automatically started. This bot is then saved and added to the process we’re creating in SAP Workflow Management. You can see that the automated bot is added to a visual process, and it’s then followed by several approval stages.


As part of the manual process, the team in the Netherlands has raised that there are often issues with the sustainability data that is manually entered for each motor. This existing process involves several emails between the technical director, the sustainability exports, and the finance department.

Instead of these lengthy, nondocumented email threads, you can incorporate a collaborative step right into the existing process. To add the step, you can create a project in SAP Ruum, allowing all required team members to work together and insert the data directly into the process.


This collaboration can then be integrated with the CAPEX workflow with just a few clicks. So, every time the CAPEX request runs through, the sustainability director is informed through their inbox. They can then see all the request details and, instead of only approving or rejecting the request, they can assign their experts to collaborate in SAP Ruum. This new process replaces the need for email length reads and ensures a single source of data.

And finally, once the data is agreed, another bot can be added to the process is SAP Workflow Management, helping to automatically distribute the value entered to the Asset Management and Procurement system.

And with that, using the tools from SAP Business Process Improvement, you’ve built a fully automated CAPEX process in just a few minutes and without using any code.

If you would like to build your own solution, you can find these products on the SAP Store now:

SAP Intelligent RPA


SAP Workflow Management


I’m looking forward to your feedback and thoughts in the comment section below. For more information and community content please visit your SAP Intelligent RPA and SAP Workflow Management community topic pages, where you can also view Q&A by other community members or where you can raise questions you may have.