BAE Systems Uses RPA for HR and Finance Processes

Starting small to establish a solid foundation and scale fast.

After investing time researching and consulting other businesses about how they ran their RPA programs, the team created a unique profile of the types of processes they wanted to start automating. The tasks were high volume, rule-based, and with structured information. BAE Systems launched its automation program focusing on HR and Finance processes managed by the Shared Services team. The approach was to start small while planning to scale for the future.

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Customer Quote

Beyond the actual processes delivered, RPA has given BAE Systems higher quality, first time right, consistent processing and scalability.

Ian Jones
Head of Transformational Services, HR

Customer achievements.

Customer Achievements

Processes automated

Faster payroll data upload

120

Automations planned by 2021

Automation-empowered teams transform processes to be right-first-time and scalable.

Payroll was one of the first processes to be automated within the Shared Services team, which had inherited many different payroll cycles as various parts of the business merged to become what BAE Systems is today. Due to the restrictive nature of the processing, only one of 10 payroll clerks could access part of the system to make data changes at any time, leading to frustration for the team. Now, a bot completes the payroll tasks, processing all the data files to a schedule defined and managed by the Payroll team. Every morning the bot reports what it has completed, and the team can now focus on more valuable work like data quality checks to ensure accuracy instead of the mechanics of uploading data. Using a bot also allows this work to be completed outside of business hours. Automation has increased payroll data uploads by 7x.

RPA has empowered back-office teams to enable change by giving them the tools to improve processes and workflows. This results in higher quality, right-first-time, consistent processing and scalability. Without RPA, adapting transactional processes is a large IT project, which could take years to complete.

Processes automated.

Payroll processing
Position management

Financial accounting reporting
Invoice receipts

Automating fast to gain competitive edge.

The Shared Services team hopes to have 120 automations in production by 2021. Using RPA will continue to help improve quality, giving BAE Systems a competitive edge in its high-precision industry.

Customer Quote

As soon as we deploy a bot, we’re effectively making a positive change to the DNA of our organization.

Lee Boyle
RPA Program Manager

Customer overview.

BAE Systems is a global defense, aerospace and security company, employing 85,000 people in more than 40 countries. With an annual revenue of £18,400M its products and services cover air, land and naval sectors as well as advanced electronics, security, information technology and support.