RPA and OCR for Supply Chain
and Logistics

Supply chain and logistics companies are spending a lot of money and time on document processing, which is error-prone and expensive. AI-powered document processing technologies can extract, process, and understand large amounts of data to deliver exponential gains.

Logistics companies manage the flow of goods through a supply chain and include operations such as warehousing, shipping, transportation, distribution, and handling of documents such as bills of lading and commercial invoices of the data in supply chain & logistics documents, 80% is in hard-to-process formats such as e-mails, scanned copies, and images. Manual data extraction from these documents is time-consuming, error-prone, and costly. Automating document processing helps extract data from these documents and saves time and money.

Automation is on the rise.

The world is accelerating the process of payment for B2B invoices. By 2025, 50% will be automated and paid for without human intervention. And by 2030, 80 % of business-to-business invoices will be transmitted digitally. The use of automation in document processing has increased significantly over the past few years, making it easier for companies to quickly and accurately analyze large amounts of data. The benefits include enhanced customer experience and more accurate tracking within supply chains or logistics networks. Businesses can reduce their operation costs by automating document processing, which helps them maintain productivity levels.

A key concept is that these processes can be applied across any industry – not just those related directly to commerce (such as shipping goods). This means businesses can get insights from their documents without having human overviews every time something changes, reducing costs by eliminating unnecessary work.

What is Optical Character Recognition (OCR) and Robotic Process Automation (RPA)?

Optical Character Recognition (OCR) is a technology that converts handwritten, scanned text or text within an image to a machine-readable format.

Robotic Process Automation (RPA) is a technology that automates a task based on a series of repetitive actions usually performed by humans. It mimics any process-oriented activities such as copying and extracting information.

Here are five ways companies are using RPA to streamline their logistics and supply chain workflows:

1) Data Entry automation

RPA is a robust tool that can help to automate data entry tasks in logistics and supply chain workflows. It’s an excellent way for companies with large amounts of information, like freight forwarders or delivery services who deal directly with customers on behalf of businesses across different departments within their organization (i.e., human resources). But

also, those using middlemen vendors such as third-party warehouses which store goods until they’re delivered, take up less time spent reviewing paperwork manually.

2) Logistics Management

With the help of RPA, supply chain managers can achieve efficiencies in delivery. The bots can coordinate between multiple logistics partners such as road freight and air cargo. It is to ensure proper handover details for each product’s location on order status across all relevant systems, so there’ll be no need to contact human workers when using this technology.

RPA bots can generate notifications to customers if there’s a delay, enhancing their experience with practice and real-time order updates. Not only does this improve error handling, but it also makes cross-border shipments easy as pie because you have no reason to worry about all those extra customs processes that come into play when sending packages across borders.

3) After-Sales Service

The most critical aspect of supply chain management is what happens after a sale. RPA and other technologies can work together to improve the supply chain management aspects of a business.

For instance, when a customer places a service request through a mobile app, an intelligent virtual assistant or chatbot can interact with the customer and place requests in the system. Intelligent document processing applications can read service request documents from various formats and then coordinate with RPA bots to capture and maintain data.

In the case of a return, mobile apps for third-party service providers and reverse logistics partners can improve visibility on location and time of arrival. RPA bots automatically send acknowledgment e-mails to customers to track orders in real-time.

4) Initiating purchase orders

RPA bot can help supply chain departments to check inventory levels, place an order for more products when supply falls below a specified level, and then update the inventory levels throughout the supply chain. Most companies have a predefined purchase order template or online ordering process set up with their vendors, which makes it easy for them to automate transaction processing.

Automating the process with RPA means fewer delays and errors. Maintaining an efficient supply chain process is key to success in this industry. It reduces the risk of lost sales due to a shortage or excess inventory, which helps companies manage optimal levels throughout their peak times and troughs between shipments from one destination point across other countries.

5) Order management

Automation is an excellent manner to save time and money. It can help with routine and repetitive tasks, such as load matching, transport availability, and order management.

RPA can help streamline these aspects of your order management process, bringing data together across multiple data silos, such as organizational management modules. RPA bots can also take over other repetitive tasks, like e-mailing, initiating calls, and collating reports.

Conclusion:

To ensure the quality of your document processing and to decrease your efforts, you should implement your automated document processing system powered by RPA (Robotic Process Automation) and OCR (Optical Character Recognition). Hand-entry of documents is increasing, which results in manual duplication of documents. But the increased automation and integration of computer vision & machine learning have led to the decision to pursue a more effective and direct pipeline between intelligent agents and humans. So, it is important to have a proper strategy when using this technology.

If you’re looking for an affordable automated document processing solution that can scale your business, you should contact MetroMax Solutions. We have a good deal of experience of helping our clients grow and make the most of their investments in technology. As we continue working through our solution with you to optimize your workflow and automate some of the mundane tasks that your processes require, you will want to retain us to ensure that your document processing service is running smoothly.