With business in many sectors becoming increasingly busy, more and more organisations are looking to improve output and reduce costs through investment in automation. This is a sensible approach, but it does require careful planning and investigation. All too often, companies don’t have the internal resources or skills left to undertake such a key piece of work. Loss of ‘excess’ personnel and natural wastage have left companies without the ability to use their own resources. In order to maximise your success with automation whilst minimising risk, businesses need knowledge borne of experience – which independent automation consultants can provide.
Automation Consultants can indicate if a process is fundamentally sound; they can provide accurate indicative costs, assess risk and mitigate them though appropriate action and planning. All these elements will be required by management prior to any agreement to progress with a project. At Automa8, we provide all these elements, ensuring excellent clarity of all key processes, from a truly independent standpoint.
Using automation consultants is often viewed as expensive and unnecessary. However, when one factors in the levels of value that a consultant actually delivers to the process, it soon becomes clear how cost-effective the decision really was. Wrong decisions made around the type of automation to use for your business can result in catastrophic ramifications in terms of costs, lost time and missed opportunities.
Independent automation consultants provide the experience and breadth of knowledge to help businesses appreciate what choices need to be made, they help with the understanding of budgets, time-scales and risks.
Risk itself is the ‘catch-all’ phrase that concerns technical, commercial and time risks. Being able to foretell what is needed, when it’s needed by, at what cost and its subsequent effect on your business, is critical information. Many companies attempt to mitigate risk through the direct use of integrators for this work. It’s a fair way forward – BUT, you only get what those specific integrators can offer (or want to sell you!), not necessarily what is best for your business.
In order to get a true picture, one should realistically refer to three integrators, with a comprehensive specification prepared beforehand. At Automa8, our automation consultants work hard to establish a clear and unambiguous specification with our clients – before integrators become involved.
During several recent projects, we have had involvement with both the Customer and the Integrator. Whilst this might seem incongruous, it actually makes a great deal of sense. Both the customer and Integrator can see the risks involved with the project from their point of view. This presents the opportunity for both sides to manage these risks: The customer needs to be sure that the application and costs are right and the Integrator needs to manage the technical and commercial risks (higher risk = higher cost).
Extensive experience from working in these unique scenarios enables our automation consultants to understand and reduce risks, evaluate wider concerns and thereby manage the risk collectively. Results are positive for both parties and confident progress can be made with key risks being mitigated. By having a detailed report, that clarifies the residual concerns and way forward, is a powerful tool for justification to senior stakeholders and shows that due diligence has been undertaken at all stages.
Automa8’s experienced automation consultants provide clients with a diverse range of services. Do please contact us to discuss possible applications within:
- Project Management
- Risk Management
- dFMEA, DFA & DFM
- Consultancy
- Budgets, concepts and business development through automation