Leading international lifestyle brand, Villeroy & Boch Group (Villeroy and Boch) geared towards innovation with SAP Intelligent Robotic Process Automation (SAP Intelligent RPA) and SAP AI Business Services to aid in staff productivity by eliminating repetitive tasks involving different systems and unstructured data while minimising impacts on SAP ERP.
Villeroy & Boch, one of Europe’s longest-established companies, sells premium bathroom ceramics and tableware to homes and hotels in 125 countries and operates 14 production sites worldwide.
As pioneers in innovation, they are now focusing on achieving process excellence through enhanced operational efficiency with intelligent solutions from SAP. To achieve this, top management realised that they needed to start by improving the employee experience through a solution based on intelligent automation technology that would relieve staff of routine tasks and help them significantly increase overall productivity.
According to Villeroy and Boch, the business process automation solution needed to meet two key requirements:
- It should not affect the company’s existing SAP ERP to ensure faster deployment.
- The solution should satisfy end-users’ needs and requirements.
Hyperautomation with SAP Intelligent RPA
Together with SAP, Villeroy & Boch started a collaborative project toward developing workflow innovation with hyperautomation. Guided by SAP experts, the team at Villeroy and Boch created two different types of intelligent bots using SAP Intelligent RPA and SAP AI Business Services:
- “Classic” RPA Bots that act as digital assistants who carry out predefined workflows based on a set of business rules.
- Intelligent Hyperautomated Bots powered by AI that carry out more complex tasks and boost the performance of the “classic” RPA bots.
Dr. Daniel Neuhäuser, Head of ERP Core Solutions at Villeroy and Boch comments:
“With SAP Intelligent RPA and SAP AI Business Services, we’re deploying software bots that automate routine tasks and trigger processes autonomously. This accelerates processes, saves employees time, and enables them to focus on more strategic activities.”
With the automation of routine tasks made possible, Villeroy & Boch were able to achieve the following business outcomes:
- Increased operational efficiency and accelerated workflows.
- Enabled employees to focus more on strategic tasks and allocate more time for more valuable business activities.
- Increased accuracy and ROI, with bots now having the capability to record more information.
According to Villeroy & Boch, it is the first SAP customer to develop and go live with an intelligent bot that leverages both SAP Intelligent RPA and SAP AI Business Services. The hyperautomated solution has provided the company with 10 digital assistants that automate tasks in accounts, purchasing, and customer service. Moreover, the solution has helped it check, classify, and process over 6,000 documents annually.
Villeroy & Boch expects to further develop automated solutions with SAP Intelligent RPA. Plans include:
- Developing unattended bots on a virtual machine to further speed up processing and workflows.
- Deploying another intelligent bot to streamline procurement workflows.
- Creating intelligent bots that will support the automatic extraction of data relevant for accounting from unconstructed documents.
- Leveraging SAP Conversational AI to build a chatbot that can be accessed through Microsoft Teams to handle user questions and interaction with SAP ERP via SAP Intelligent RPA.
About Villeroy & Boch
Founded in 1748 in Lorraine, France; Villeroy & Boch evolved into a worldwide lifestyle brand. Now based in Mettlach, Saarland as their headquarters, the company claims continued success by combining tradition and history with modern elements. The company is now on its 270th anniversary.
This pioneering hyperautomation technology was submitted by Villeroy & Boch Group as an entry to the SAP Innovation Awards 2021.
