Based on a solid foundation of Enterprise Digital Transformation, Cyclone RPA promotes a new level of digitalization and industrialization for Xingcheng Special Steel

With an annual production capacity of 6.9 million tons of special steel, Xingcheng Special Steel serves users in more than 60 countries and regions worldwide with unique steel products of various specifications and varieties and high quality and overall service portfolios. This time, Cyclone helps Xingcheng Special Steel use RPA, one of the key technologies to promote Enterprise Digital Transformation, remove repetitive work, cut costs, and increase efficiency.

Project Pain Points in Finance Department

In the Finance Department of Xingcheng Special Steel, the business user has to spend a lot of time running the two business processes: the product profitability analysis reporting and the manual handling of orders, receipts, and invoices:

Product Profitability Analysis Reporting: Every month, the business user spends one week distributing, collecting, and sorting data. After preparing the preliminary report, they have to reproduce it in Word, during which they should create graphics and charts, then do the typesetting work. This task is very time-consuming and laborious and may lead to the delayed delivery of reports due to the overlapped month-end settlement schedule.

Manual handling of orders, receipts, and invoices: In this process, the business user has to download more than 180 files from the system multiple times daily, generate financial documents based on them, input them into templates, and finally import them into the SAP system. It may take very long to finish downloading files, and the task is also repetitive.

Introducing Cyclone RPA

In Xingcheng Special Steel Automation Project, Cyclone has reviewed the business processes of the customer’s finance department and accustomed its Cyclone RPA intelligent robot to their business system. In the first phase, we will guide the business departments to identify more applicable business scenarios.

Product Profitability Analysis Reporting Process

The scopes of the RPA automation:

Review rules and create templates:

· Set up the standard template based on the processes' logic rules.

· Create a simplified and unified version of rules.

· Build the relevant process automation nodes accordingly.

Apply multiple technologies: Apply the Python plugins, Cyclone RPA built-in components, or other means to process the data in Excel and update the contents in Word. We will choose the most stable, easiest to maintain, and most efficient techniques to achieve the best results as per requirements.

Communicate the results: Communicate the results to the business user via email (or other agreed methods) while keeping the logs or other essential information for later review.

Other areas to optimize: The receiving addresses of the business user from branch plants can be maintained in a single configuration sheet. RPA intelligent robots can automatically send emails to the designated business users, according to the sheet. 

Manual handling of orders, receipts, and invoices

The scopes of the RPA automation:

Automate the steps in the system: In this process, use the built-in components in Cyclone RPA Studio to automate a large number of steps in the system. Most interface elements can be read directly and handled through the three-in-one approach. Those screen elements that cannot be read directly and managed will be identified via anchors or the CV technology.

Process data in Excel: Process the data in Excel in the background. In this process, both data reading or writing will be handled silently in the background. It will not open the Excel file in the foreground.

Communicate the results: Communicate the results to the business personnel via email (or other agreed methods) while keeping the logs or other essential information for later review.

In the past, it will require one staff to complete the product profitability analysis reporting within one week per month. And now, through the automation mechanism of Cyclone RPA intelligent robots, it can complete this process within 5 minutes. It can automatically generate the analysis report with unified formats, and the data accuracy reaches 100%.

With the Cyclone RPA robot automation technology, the business user can save 4 hours per week from handling orders, receipts and invoices manually.

Cyclone RPA intelligent robots will execute business operations in strict accordance with regulatory requirements to ensure data security and business compliance, thus reducing business risks caused by human errors.