How Irish SMEs Are Using Bots to Automate Boring Tasks | LeanBPI in the Sunday Times

This article features several businesses we worked with through the LEO Digital for Business programme. 

Profix Maintenance Services 

Cork 

maintenance and facilities management

Stephen Hartnett has made one question part of the culture at Profix: whenever his team identifies a repetitive, time-consuming process, he asks “Is it botable?” Increasingly the answer is yes.

Working with LeanBPI through his local enterprise office, Hartnett identified tasks like calculating staff hours and sick days from a timesheet app, then inputting the data into accounts. Now a bot — a piece of code written to mimic those steps — handles it all. When a new job comes in, details have to be entered in seven different places. With 11 jobs a day, that’s 77 manual steps, all now automated.

“To me a bot is like a guy standing there, tapping his arm, 24 hours a day. The bot links anything to anything. It’s going to change everything.” — Stephen Hartnett, Profix Maintenance Services

Also featured in this article

JFH Jewels : 

Limerick

Jewellery manufacturing and wholesale

John Harrison had already digitised large parts of his business — stock-taking, customer ordering — through earlier work with LeanBPI. This time around, he automated customer statements. Twice a month his team had to send them out manually, a two-hour job typically done late in the evening. Now his daughter Kim presses a button and the bot handles it all.

“I’m a one-finger typist and every stock code is one letter and four digits. When you’re tired you make mistakes. With automation, there are no mistakes.”

— John Harrison, JFH Jewels

National Council for Exercise and Fitness (NCEF)

Education and training for health and fitness instructors

NCEF runs classes of up to 80 students across multiple modules, each requiring two assignments. After assessment, scores must be recorded, percentages calculated, final marks awarded, and each grade entered into three different records. Previously done entirely by hand, the bot now takes the student list, creates a spreadsheet for each, inputs all 80 grades, and files them across multiple documents — automatically.

“What used to take us hours now takes four minutes. You can watch it at work, opening and closing files in the blink of an eye. It’s wonderful.” — Áine Ní Chonaill, NCEF Managing Director

2eva

Carlow 

Energy consultancy, BER ratings and air-tightness testing

For office manager Sinead Bret, one of the most time-consuming parts of her day was sending out quotations. Now she records a few details during the phone call and the bot gathers all the information, sends out quotes in batches, and includes a request to schedule an appointment — all in seconds.

“I get emails back from people saying ‘thanks for your speedy response’ a lot more now. It’s just much more streamlined.” — Sinead Bret, Office Manager, 2eva

Delivered through the LEO Digital for Business programme