Fleet Innovation: What is Robotic Process Automation (RPA)?

Robotic Process Automation (RPA) is an application of technology, governed by business logic and structured inputs, aimed at automating business processes. Using RPA tools, a company can configure software, or a “robot,” to capture and interpret applications for processing a transaction, manipulating data, triggering responses and communicating with other digital systems.

RPA scenarios range from something as simple as generating an automatic response to an email to deploying thousands of bots, each programmed to automate jobs in an ERP system.

Source: CIO Magazine

The route planning process is not as simple as “hitting the optimization button”. Good planners apply a number of techniques besides optimization to arrive at the best results and it is critical to standardize the planning process across planners to ensure consistency.

As part of Descartes Route Planner, Descartes Background Optimizer (BGO) uses RPA to make every planner as good as the best planner. Its bot structure allows planners to configure complex planning and coordination tasks across multiple planning schedules.

For example, BGO can be configured to filter data, run specific optimization strategies (e.g. swapping and selective optimization) that are time sensitive and automatically move plans from planning to execution without any intervention. Multiple BGOs can be configured across large planning schedules to continually optimize and execute multi-phase plans.

There can be multiple types of BGOs configured to solve specific planning and execution tasks. These BGOs can be invoked in real-time depending upon the incoming data or other events.

• Build complex planning scenarios
• Automate complex planning tasks
  • Ensure planning consistency
  • Deliver best results
  • Minimize planning resources
  • Reduce planning latency
• 24X7 availability
• Streamline delivery planning and execution processes
• Scale for large planning problems

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