Intelligent Automation - Automated Cost Recovery

Client and engagement overview

The client is a global leader in the iron ore industry, recognized for its innovation and industry-leading development of world-class infrastructure and mining assets in Australia.

They have discovered and developed major iron ore deposits and constructed some of the most significant mines in the world. They have grown to be one of the largest global iron ore producers.

Challenges

The client engaged Mindfields to automate their Software Cost Charging process. The process was performed monthly by the technology team. The information gathered was semi-unstructured, with support interactions by business users. The rules and decisions were pre-determined and included interactive support at agreed process steps from users. By leveraging automation, this process had the potential to provide productivity benefits to the business.

The Technology Asset Procurement (TAP) team is responsible for purchasing software licenses on behalf of the client. License costs are charged back to a user's cost center or WBS at the end of each month to ensure timely and accurate accounting (journalling).

Each vendor has a unique report that is downloaded from their respective portal. These downloaded files are then validated, filtered, and collated into a format in which they can be populated in the client's journal template and emailed to the accountant.

Our solution

Using the proprietary Intelligent Automation (IA) maturity framework, Mindfields assessed the business process to determine the feasibility of Intelligent Automation. Each process step was analyzed in detail to optimize the business process in a cost-effective manner. The assessment included designing a compelling business case, developed using various metrics obtained from the client, such as transaction volumes, average handling time, and SLAs, among others. The IA maturity rating, according to our framework, confirmed that this process was an ideal candidate for Intelligent Automation.

Mindfields automated the business process in line with its IA Development Lifecycle. The Mindfields team carried out the development and provided demonstrations. The client's technology team was pleased with the progress of the BOT, its usage, and exception handling, which supported their routine operational activities.

Benefits

The automation of the process delivers the following benefits: