PROJECT STORY
The challenge
Cost consultants usually have to spend countless hours doing manual data entry and excel compilation for cost reporting which gets worse as projects develop and become ever more complex.
The Royal Atlantis Resort and Residences
Cost reporting need
not be time consuming
The solution
Working with robots: our innovative Robotic Process Automation (RPA) platform performs detailed reporting processes that would otherwise be time-consuming when done manually.
The impact
By deploying RPA, we can automate 80% of the manual tasks that are needed to complete a detailed cost report.
80%
of manual reporting was automated
2 hours
of reporting via RPA vs up to 7 days when done manually
The challenge
Imagine you’re a cost consultant, and you have to choose between spending extended hours doing manual reporting tasks or working on bigger and more exciting things that will challenge your skills and add value to the client. Seems like a no-brainer. Let’s be clear: accurate reporting is critical to the success of cost management, but it can be very time consuming, especially on large-scale projects.
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When we won the cost consultancy services for The Royal Atlantis Resort & Residences, we realised just how much time is spent on manual and repetitive reporting tasks. That’s why we deployed our very own robot and started automating.
The solution
The Royal Atlantis Resort & Residences project is a 360,000m² luxury development that involved working together with a wide range of supply chains. Combined with the in-depth information and extensive technicalities that go into this type of reporting, the breadth of this project turned a routine reporting process into heavy, time-consuming work. On top of that, we had to integrate our own reports with the cost reports of other stakeholders including the client and the contractor.
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In collaboration with First Consulting, one of our new ecosystem partners, we developed and introduced Robotic Process Automation (RPA) into the client’s workflow. RPA was programmed to complete three detailed processes: (1) collect data from several locations; (2) check, reorganise and collate the data into a final summary; and (3) place the final produced tables into a Microsoft Word-based report. As the project continued to develop and become more complex, the administrative aspect of producing cost reports became more efficient because of RPA.
The use of RPA on Atlantis not only highlighted the potential benefits on mega projects and the importance of consistency, it also showed the client that Arcadis is at the forefront of digital transformation, leading to further digital related commissions to improve the efficiency of the project.
The impact
By deploying our robot, we were able to automate and complete 80% of the manual work within 2 hours. Without RPA, this task can take up to 7 working days to complete by a senior consultant. The time that we saved has been realigned — with the client’s consent — toward other tasks that add value to the project.
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It is amazing to see how a digital tool like RPA can make such a huge impact on a project by simply eliminating manual, repetitive tasks. Yet, we dare say that we have just scratched the surface of RPA’s potential. As part of our digital transformation strategy, we are looking to further scale RPA’s capabilities to enable more advanced analytics and processes that will differentiate our services from the rest of the industry. Robots are definitely our friends.
