Building an automation factory.
Confidential global manufacturer of outdoor power equipment
3 Min
The case study in 30 seconds
A mandate to digitise, and workflows that would not scale.
A global manufacturer of outdoor power equipment, with manufacturing across several sites, had a corporate mandate to digitise operations and cut manufacturing costs by 10%. Manual, siloed workflows were limiting throughput, quality and scalability.
Arenema set up an Automation Factory: an operating model that takes every opportunity through discovery, analysis, prioritisation, development and hypercare. In the first three months, 60 use cases were assessed, 18 prioritised and 8 bots delivered.
A shared near- and offshore squad working from a reusable component library cut development cost by 45%, beating the 40% target, and change management brought adoption across the plants to 95%.
The challenge
Automation at the scale of the business.
The manufacturer set clear requirements:
- 01Systematically discover and prioritise automation opportunities
- 02Cut bot development cost by at least 40% through shared assets
- 03Deploy each automation to production in under four weeks
- 04Harden security and comply with company IT controls
- 05Embed KPIs and governance so value keeps being realised
Automation pays off when it runs like a production line, not a series of one-off projects.
Our approach
One operating model, many automations.
Arenema built the capability to find, build and run automations again and again, rather than delivering a handful of bots. Every use case follows the same path, draws on the same components and is measured the same way.
01. Operating model
Discovery to hypercare
The Automation Factory gives every opportunity the same route: discovery, analysis, prioritisation, development and hypercare. 60 use cases were assessed and 18 prioritised in the first three months.
02. Delivery squad
Shared people, reusable parts
A mutualised near- and offshore automation squad builds from a reusable component library, which reduced development cost by 45%.
03. Engineering
Continuous delivery for automation
CI/CD pipelines, playbooks and a KPI dashboard move automations into production continuously and track the value they deliver.
04. Governance
Adoption across plants
A change-management programme and governance board achieved 95% adoption across the plants. Security hardening and compliance with company IT controls were requirements from the start.
The first three months.
What the Automation Factory delivered in its first three months.
8
bots delivered in the first three months
−45%
development cost (target: 40%)
95%
adoption across plants
The outcome
A repeatable way to automate.
The manufacturer now has an operating model for automation rather than a list of projects: a pipeline of assessed and prioritised use cases, a shared team and component library, and continuous delivery with KPIs and governance built in.
Development cost came down by more than the 40% target, and the plants adopted the change.
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