The payback on a robust, automated end-to-end source-to-pay process could be high. Crucially, we found significant automation potential not only in transactional activities, such as order and invoice processing, but also in sourcing’s strategic elements, such as vendor selection and management.
By applying a new form of analysis to the hundreds of individual tasks involved in the source-to-pay process, we have found that almost 60 percent of them have the potential to be fully or largely automated using currently available technologies. Several emerging technologies, including robotic process automation (RPA), machine learning, and advanced artificial-intelligence programs or “cognitive agents,” have the potential to overcome hitherto stubborn barriers to automation in the enterprise environment. Despite significant interest and investment, traditional approaches to automating source-to-pay (see sidebar, “Defining source-to-pay”) have yet to deliver on the promise of a fully digital process requiring minimal human involvement. Large enterprises have not been so successful.
Exceptions trigger a series of automated mitigating actions, with procurement staff alerted only if the actions fail to get supply back on track.
Once supply commences, the sourcing system continually monitors the winning suppliers, covering not only their quality and delivery performance but also their progress on the ongoing cost reduction they agreed to during the sourcing process. The report it generates highlights the top negotiating points for the procurement team-and the system continues to revise its models and guidance as the negotiations proceed. When their quotes come back, it conducts an automated review, basing its analysis on internal clean-sheet cost models for the parts, together with data on each supplier’s capabilities and structural costs. Next, the system automatically draws up an electronic request for quotation and sends it to the potential suppliers. The procurement team enters the specifications into an analytics-based sourcing system, which interprets the document and-drawing on its database of suppliers and the outcomes of prior sourcing efforts-identifies three current suppliers, plus two newly added companies able to produce the part. The engineering department has finalized its concept design for a critical component in the next product generation.
0 kommentar(er)
