The Greater London Authority has adopted robotic process automation (RPA) in project management to improve the organisation’s efficiency.
It has selected Nottinghamshire headquartered The Robot Exchange as its RPA partner, using the company's DeVol software-as-a-service RPA platform.
RPA bots typically take manual processes, such as an action triggered by an invoice being received, and automatically carry out the next processes in the organisation, which could be adding the invoice to the ledger for a project.
Data uploading and the creation of management information have been automated to improve data sharing and consumption across business units of the GLA.
Andy Wallace, chief executive officer of The Robot Exchange, said the GLA will use the tool for its high priority infrastructure projects, adding: “Previously, this was a manual updating process with lots of data changes to be consumed.”
Increasing accuracy
The GLA said this would increase the accuracy of measuring project progress and investment.
“This has already reduced errors and improved the efficiency of human resource deployment,” said Laurence Tricker, programme office manager at the GLA. “Also, for the first time, we can now analyse the performance across multi-faceted programmes to understand the key metrics, overall impact, and longer-term outcomes. That is good news for all stakeholders.”
Wallace explained that GLA project managers had targeted input data so that the platform could collect, verify the data and automate processes.
Development for the RPA platform takes place in Northern Ireland, where The Robot Exchange received support from Invest in Northern Ireland via the European Union Investment for Growth and Jobs Programme.
