CUI

Director of Business Intelligence and Analytics for CUI, Ed Keeley has not only embraced Robotic Process Automation (RPA) but sponsored its ratification into the company’s business processes. They currently have sixteen different automations in production, many of which run daily, with several more in development.

What started as Ed automating some of his personal reporting tasks has evolved into the development of applications beneficial to multiple departments across CUI. The software aims to boost efficiency and productivity through automation, attracting significant interest within the organization. To manage this increasing influx of ideas, Ed has created an online form for employees to input a request, enabling him to evaluate their feasibility and potential.

However, Ed’s path to becoming an automation connoisseur has been a bit unconventional. His supervisor had the idea of introducing RPA as a way to improve operational efficiency and reduce menial working hours. As he became familiar with the tool and realized it’s potential, the project of RK adoption was added to Ed’s workload. Ed knew virtually nothing of the tool or RPA generally but welcomed the challenge with the objectives of learning it and owning the process of increasing CUI’s productivity through automation.

The concept of embracing a challenge is nothing new to Ed. He shared a story from a few years ago when his manager asked him to build a website for CUI. Despite having no prior experience or knowledge, he confidently agreed to the task. This is the way Ed approaches most things and RK was no different.

“If a guy like me can do it, then anyone can”

While Ed’s internal motivation to learn significantly aided in his accelerated skill development, it would not have been possible without the software’s ease of use and the included extensive customer support. Many of the current RPA solutions on the market require significant technical or programming knowledge which can be discouraging to the customer. For this purpose, RK was developed with the end user in mind illustrating immense value in the idea that anyone can create automations.

While Ed is the primary developer at CUI, he feels strongly that its implementation will grow into an entire department. “I’m still mainly using it for operations, but I can certainly see it growing beyond that in the future.” He continued by saying, “It’s definitely geared towards people who may not know how to do a lot of coding, an average guy like me can pick it up easily.”

While the learning process has been productive, Ed emphasized that since starting with RK he has been the most impressed with the Customer Success team. Keyence assigns each customer a specific representative to work alongside them (to the extent they desire), to cultivate continued development. This way, there is incentive for both parties to uphold effort on further automation scenario creation. As mentioned above, this contact has been vital for Ed’s ceaseless progression; he has even built up a repository of response emails from Tim answering his various inquiries for future use and reference.

“The support team - there are not enough good things I can say about that whole group. The vast majority of the time, he [Tim] gets me an answer within a few hours or the same day. He will give me examples of activities with screenshots, and then send them to me.”

Additionally, there are a plethora of learning resources available in conjunction to the Customer Success Team members. With e-learning courses, webinars, and a comprehensive reference manual, the idea is that users have multiple access points when trying to find solutions to any issues that may arise.

When inquiring about CUI Cable’s return on investment and the extent to which Ed was concerned about the time and financial cost associated with getting started with any new software, he was quick to dismiss any uncertainty.

“As soon as he [Ed’s manager] talked to me about it and told me some of the ideas, the value in it to me seemed obvious. Being able to automate things and get time back, the wheels immediately started turning as to what I could do with it”

While he was not the project’s internal champion, his enthusiasm for the tool has engendered its success. His initial impression churned out several ideas as to what the product’s value would be and the myriad of use cases CUI had for automation. Since, it has proved its worth in a number of ways.

CUI’s flagship use case deals with their business objectives regarding performance and service metrics for modems and signals. Essentially, each modem that has been installed or serviced needs to be tested for its functionality. Ed has been able to automate the entire process of testing, flagging data inconsistencies, and reporting. This has enabled CUI to identify and correct any issues or locations in need of additional service even before the customer is aware there is a problem. This automation scenario runs daily and typically takes four and a half to five and a half hours; one can only imagine the manual strain on time and cost to complete this process without RK.

“This one has a lot of value as far as an example where RPA gave us a tool we could use to improve performance that we didn’t have.”

Ed has also built out several other automations for various data reporting tasks, such as analyzing fuel usage reports from vehicles and operations performance. He shared that he feels many people are resistant to automation because they think, “Automation is going to automate me out of a job, but that’s really not the case. All I’m doing is showing people is all its doing is getting us out of the copy and paste business and letting us use our time for something a little more fulfilling.” CUI’s work so far is exemplary in regard to their use of the tool to advance and improve business processes, but there is still space to expand.

Though CUI has a long history, recent years have brought extreme growth. To support this momentum, they sought an RPA tool that could scale their expanding needs. RK has met this bill and allowed them to efficiently manage the growing volume of back-office and administrative tasks without the need to significantly increase staff. Their intention is to have a self-sustaining automation department where multiple sections of the company such as HR, Sales, or Accounting are represented. Ed stated: “So far if I can think it out, then I can get RK to do it. There is immense expansion potential as we continue to come up with more ideas the more, we use it.”

With RK, CUI has unlocked a new era of efficiency and productivity. The tool's ease of use and powerful capabilities have empowered employees to automate tedious tasks, freeing up time for strategic initiatives and increasing operational efficiency. While we spoke about several things, perhaps Ed’s most resonating endorsement came with the direct statement saying, "It’s been extremely beneficial to our business". This sentiment encapsulates the impact RK has had across the organization. As CUI continues to embrace RK's potential, it sets the stage for the growth that is possible through automation.