Chevron sees increasing ROI after automating processes from the back office to well drilling – SiliconANGLE News

In an effort to streamline operations and automate certain tasks, Chevron Corp., a 142-year-old multinational energy company, turned to artificial intelligence-powered robotic process automation.

The company has seen increasing returns on its automation investments, while deepening its use of technology and expanding it to various areas of the organization. Today it has about 300 automations with more than 600,000 hours of work saved, according toVicki Harris (pictured), manager of application platform engineering services at Chevron.

Theres never appetitefor automation on its own becauseyoure changing someones process, but what there is appetite for is the results, she said. So, in addition to value, bottom line, cost savings,we have people who are just improving their workflow for themselves, and so theres also asense of empowerment for them.

Harris spoke with Dave Vellante and Lisa Martin, hosts of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Medias livestreaming studio, during UiPaths Forward IV conference. They discussed the evolution of IT at Chevron over the past few years, the benefits brought by deploying the UiPath Inc. platform, the many use cases within the organization, and what the company expects for the future. (* Disclosure below.)

Chevrons automation journey began about four years ago, primarily involving proof of concepts. Because they proved their worth quite easily and quickly, the company decided to expand the program, according to Harris.

The automation provided by UiPath was then applied to the back office, first to the currency conversion work, which is often quite manual intensive in global companies. Soon, automation moved to other areas, reaching the oil well drilling mapping systems, which is part of Chevrons core business.

Youd be surprised.Some of those systems lookkind of like your ERPs; theyhave kind of the same challenges, Harris explained. So, as we extend outside of traditionalkind of HR, finance, audit practicesinto the rest of our business,the use cases are similar.

With a whole-house approach now, Chevron aims to continue pushing automation.

I wouldnt want toset limits on ourselves in terms ofwhat we can do,but certainly were looking attext analytics: How do we manage that document?How do we extract that data,use models to get that into our data lake? she stated. But theres still alwaysthe work of finding that lastmile of process; theres many parts ofour business still untouched, and so we dont want to let up on that.

For companies just starting their automation journey, Harris advises: Anybody whos concerned about ROI,its so simple, its so easy; you should be able to find itin your first year. Obviously, it grows,but if youre not findingsome return in the first year,I would say, take a look at what you needto adjust, because its not that hard.

Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLEs and theCUBEs coverage of during UiPaths Forward IV conference. (* Disclosure: TheCUBE is a paid media partner for the UiPaths Forward IV conference. Neither UiPath Inc., the sponsor for theCUBEs event coverage, nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

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Chevron sees increasing ROI after automating processes from the back office to well drilling - SiliconANGLE News