Fraunhofer Institute for Manufacturing Engineering and Automation IPA

Process Innovation

Innovative idea in businessman hand — © Adobe Stock

What we understand by process innovation

Fast, flexible and efficient processes in the support functions of a company contribute significantly towards sustainable corporate success. They are indispensable when it comes to achieving a strong customer focus and improving competitiveness. They also ensure that products and services can be tailored ever-more precisely to customer requirements and improve time to market.

Challenge and benefits

Automating processes with RPA (Robotic Process Automation) or CPA (Cognitive Process Automation) are just two examples of highly innovative digitization technologies that enable processes to be considered in a completely new light. In view of the rapidly increasing number of available software solutions and methods, the main challenge faced by companies is to use the right technologies in the right place. The emphasis is on cost-effectiveness of the solutions implemented. Our team helps you analyze potentials and implement suitable solutions.

Our approach

We help companies choose, prioritize and implement the right digitization technologies in corporate’s support functions:

Analysis: we conduct a systematic analysis of the current process landscape to identify pain points and areas where there is room for improvement. To obtain a complete picture of the status quo, we also consider corporate strategy requirements and your customers’ expectations. By using our app-based digitization assessments and taking into account the data potential of existing IT systems, we make the analysis phase as brief and efficient as possible.
Implementing solutions: our aim is to find a solution to the problems identified in the process as quickly as possible. In doing so, we take a broad technological view and offer you the following range of services.

Our services

Programming our own tools

A small digital support tool is often all that is needed to eliminate the biggest sources of waste in the process. With the help of our programmers, we develop lean and fast applications for automating processes, including our own RPA solutions and intelligent assistance apps. The programmed solutions can be seamlessly integrated into the existing system landscape and offer you uncomplicated process support.

Selecting and implementing commercial software

Based on an individual catalog of criteria, we find the best software solution available on the market for your requirements. This includes solutions for digital employee assistance systems, AI applications and RPA software. We pay particular attention to ensuring that new IT applications can be integrated into your company's existing system landscape. We help you identify and select suitable providers, and supervise proceedings as the software is put into operation. This empowers your employees to use the solution applications correctly at an early stage and also means that processes are adapted accordingly.

Implementing lean management principles

Our optimization approach is based on the concept of only doing what is necessary. We are convinced that the basic principles of lean management remain highly relevant - even in a digitalized working environment. Within the scope of optimization projects, we give you guidance in lean management, shop floor management, the flow principle in processes and customer timing, continuous improvement and leadership.

Additional services

To help you prioritize the proposed solutions, we use our digital tools to assess cost-effectiveness. This gives you clarity about the future benefits of the measures at an early stage.

Target image

Together with your company, we develop a vision to optimize your processes in the long-term. The result is an attractively-presented and easily-understandable target image, which enables you to motivate your employees for the upcoming changes right from the start. From the target image, we derive concrete goals and key performance indicators to evaluate the success of the measures initiated. The target image is a good top-down supplement to the analyses and makes it possible for your company to take a long-term approach to designing its processes.

Roadmap

In addition to implementing concrete solutions, we formulate recommendations for action to further optimize your processes and document them in a roadmap. On the one hand, this provides you with a guideline for the mid- to long-term procedure that you can use as a long-term reference. Furthermore, you can integrate the roadmap into the overall strategy for the digital business transformation process.