How Digital Process Automation is Driving Asset Management Success
Growing popularity of Digital Process Automation
Organizations are turning to a digital-first approach to stay competitive in their market. They benefit from digital process automation (DPA) by automating various business processes, including maintenance management, utility tasks, approval process, etc.
Let us zoom in on the trends in the market and check out why they matter. We shall study how organizations leverage digitization to acquire new customers and strengthen the bond with existing clients.
Process Automation in maintenance management
Process Automation lies at the heart of maintenance management software. Maintenance managers can define maintenance schedules that comprise inspection, monitoring, and approval tasks with easy-to-execute digital checklists accessible via a tab or a smartphone and automate them.
This practice ensures all the technicians are well informed of the complete standard service procedure and increases the efficiency of the work as the tech who works on a task checks each checklist as an acknowledgment of completion. The application even auto-assigns the best technician for the scheduled job or sudden breakdown to keep the ball rolling and save ticket assignment time.
Managers can initiate multiple schedules corresponding to various assets, in bulk, at varied time frames that open up at the desired time, saving you lots of time and energy!
Organizations can quickly migrate from manual and ineffective maintenance management methods to result-oriented maintenance management software via bulk asset upload in a predefined template. They can automate the process of claiming warranties to avail the full benefits of manufacturer warranty ending premature disposal of a product and saving capital expenses.
Process Automation based on asset movements
For any business, it is unavoidable to move assets and tools across business locations for compensation for asset shortage or fulfillment of its operations.
A good maintenance management software should model its workflow around this requirement. In this scenario, the process automation workflow can check if the intended asset is under a transaction and shall refuse to issue a gate pass until the transaction gets over. It enables your firm to improve its services and free-up resources on need.
Service request automation
Automate assigning service engineers with maintenance tasks to save time for supervisors and eliminate their presence during night shifts. A CMMS can automate task assignment in many fashions:
i) The application assigns the service request to all the members in the department. Any volunteer can accept the task, disabling it for the rest.
ii) The application assigns the new work order to the departmental head, who can re-assign it to any member by viewing the current workload of all members.
iii) The application lets only those within the Geo-Fencing circle of the customer accept tasks. The approach is advisable for emergency fixes.
iv) Whenever people raise a breakdown ticket for a specific asset, the application auto-assigns the users already mapped to it. The approach is recommendable when a technician is skilled at repairing complex assets of high business value.
A CMMS also has a provision to disable the auto-assignment of tasks. Facility Managers and Customers can track the service technician’s location from the application.
SLA based Email automation
If service time exceeds unreasonably, it may be costly and detrimental to the business. Definition and tracking of service level agreements governing the quality and duration of services, terms, and conditions of service via CMMS software are essential to propel the work forward. You can make maintenance staff, customers, contractors, etc., read and express consent to abide by the terms as a part of formalities.
The result of SLA-driven operations is an improved system that helps forge solid partnerships with customers, and contractors. To make SLAs effective, you can instruct process automation software to trigger notifications whenever there is a breach in SLA during any stage of the work order lifecycle. Multiple and multi-level reminders and escalations(with a copy to the concerned staff) can speed up the tasks by enforcing self-ownership. Not just that! A CMMS provides maintenance managers with exclusive SLA violation reports.
Approval workflow automation
Approval workflow automation is one of the areas where maintenance automation software scores with distinction over manual approvals.
As a vital part of business operations, approval workflows provide an opportunity to review tasks and give inputs before completion.
Build automated approval workflows so that business operations and processes comply with organization policies and standards. It is necessary to reduce the overall risk in your operating model.
Define serial or parallel approvers depending on the project scope that will make the workflow effective. An invoice approval workflow is a typical example of an approval workflow. It is necessary to ensure that the invoice reimbursement process completes smoothly.
Based on the scope of the project and the organization, the approval workflow varies significantly. So does the number of approval checkpoints. But at least a few are required before something hits the market.
Approval task automation improves multi-tasking and client experience; maximizes efficiency; reduces errors, and increases productivity. On the contrary, manual approval processes are associated with bottlenecks, unjustifiable delays, less transparency, etc. Delays in approval may impact inter-departmental activities, causing significant losses to an organization.
Paperless office with smooth process flow
To sum up, process automation software enhances response time to a service request, employee engagement, and client experience and reduces associated risks. It enforces accountability and compliance and helps staff know the priority order for taking up tasks. Create a paperless office with minimal interruption as process automation keeps the processes flowing smoothly towards completion!
