RPA in logistics:
use cases, benefits & implementation guide

Shipment scheduling & tracking

Errors in shipment scheduling can lead to delayed deliveries and misrouted shipments, undermining customer trust and incurring additional costs. With RPA, companies prevent such mistakes as bots can accurately fill out shipping documents, select suitable transport and routes based on predefined rules, and notify stakeholders of shipment details.

In addition, companies can use RPA tools to track shipments in real-time and quickly take necessary actions in case of delays or other issues.

Bots enhanced with AI can analyze multiple parameters, including historical data, delivery location and time, traffic patterns, vehicle capacity, and weather conditions, to suggest the optimal route during shipment scheduling.

Warehouse operations

With RPA, companies can automate multiple warehouse management activities, minimizing travel time within the warehouse and maximizing throughput. For example, RPA software can automatically generate packing slips and instructions, and shipping labels, freeing warehouse personnel from these mundane tasks.

Warehouse managers can also use bots to automatically assign tasks to specific workers based on item location, worker availability, and delivery urgency, minimizing the time needed to pick the item and increasing staff productivity.

Customer service

By adopting RPA to handle routine customer-facing tasks, companies free up more time for their sales reps and support agents to build stronger relationships with clients.

Customer service teams can use bots to respond to general customer queries. With bots operating 24/7 and providing multilingual support, companies can significantly reduce query processing times for the team and waiting times for customers. RPA tools automate data collection from customer queries and its input into the ticket system. If enhanced with AI capabilities, these bots can interpret the query content and customer sentiment and escalate the ticket to relevant human agents if needed, providing contextual information for faster issue resolution.

RPA tools can also track shipping statuses for orders and automatically send notifications to customers with updates, improving transparency and helping build trust with customers.

Inventory management

Maintaining optimal inventory levels is critical for companies that heavily rely on logistics, like retailers or manufacturers, to prevent disruptions in supply chains and effectively meet customer demand. Robotic process automation tools can run real-time inventory checks for item availability and alert relevant teams or automatically place new orders when stock levels drop below a certain limit. This helps prevent understocking and streamlines order fulfillment.

Intelligent RPA bots with predictive capabilities can analyze historical sales data, customer behavior, and market trends to make accurate demand forecasts, which enable businesses to plan sufficient inventory levels.

Returns processing

Handling returns involves reverse logistics with additional shipping costs that negatively impact the revenue of businesses. Therefore, implementing RPA for returns processing can be a key factor in minimizing return-related expenses.

Companies can use RPA to authorize process requests based on predefined rules, create return orders and link them with the original purchase order, generate and send return shipping labels to customers, and initiate refund payment processes, increasing operational efficiency and improving customer experience.

Compliance management & reporting

Companies from the logistics industry must comply with multiple transportation safety, customs, and environmental regulations and RPA solutions can assist in meeting these requirements. For example, software robots can generate error-free shipping documents, customs declarations, and other official forms, minimizing the risk of compliance errors and penalties. Moreover, RPA solutions provide audit trails by automatically logging all actions taken by the bot and storing process history.

Supplier management

Supplier management is vital for the efficient and uninterrupted operation of modern businesses. By automating labor-intensive manual tasks, companies can free their employees’ time to focus on developing and maintaining beneficial, long-term relationships with suppliers.

RPA software with AI capabilities can help manage suppliers more efficiently. In addition to automating tasks within administrative processes like contract management and invoice processing, such solutions can facilitate more complex, strategic activities. For example, intelligent bots can help select reliable vendors by gathering information about candidates, compiling company profiles, running background checks, and ranking vendors based on predefined criteria.

After a supplier is selected and approved, bots can speed up their onboarding by collecting necessary information and documents, creating supplier accounts, and providing training materials to new vendors.

Сompanies can also automate supplier performance monitoring by programming bots to track vendor performance data in real-time, notify teams of any issues, and collect documentation for performance review meetings.