Industry case study

How DHL connected an automation pilot to shared working standards

A focused reporting pilot gave a logistics team a starting point for process documentation, shared governance and staff enablement.

Source publisherUiPath
Source publishedPublication date not disclosed
Last checked

Independent Cactera analysis of publicly documented work. Cactera was not involved in this work. Company names identify the subjects, not Cactera clients or partners.

Pilot outcome reported by UiPath

15 of 30employees moved from one manual process to higher-value work

Read UiPath’s account
Comparison
The pilot process's previous 30-person team
Scope
DHL Global Forwarding, Freight's Post Flight pilot
Timeframe
Historical pilot; publication and measurement dates not disclosed
The published work

The problem.

The logistics division wanted to reduce repetitive work and internal process bottlenecks.

What changed.

Its Post Flight pilot combined operational and flight data into exception reports. A Center of Excellence established standards, documentation and training for colleagues.

As described by UiPath.

Pilot outcome reported by UiPath

What was reported.

UiPath reports that 15 of the process's 30 employees moved to higher-value work while the remaining team handled exceptions. Source: UiPath

What the evidence can tell us

This is one vendor-published pilot account, not a company-wide staffing reduction. It does not establish training's isolated impact, and its one-month ROI claim applies only to that first pilot. No publication date is supplied.

Cactera analysis

What we take from it.

The best workshop candidate is usually a repeated task with a willing owner. We would ask the team to bring examples of both ordinary work and the awkward cases that need a person. That makes it possible to distinguish a rule the tool can apply from a judgment that should remain with an employee.

A pilot should improve the handoff as well as the task. The person reviewing an exception needs enough information to decide what to do next without repeating the whole investigation. We would design that review screen or report with its actual reader, then test it using records the team recognizes. A fast flow that produces unclear exceptions simply moves effort elsewhere.

Shared standards become useful when colleagues can repeat the work. Keep a short record of the trigger, permissions, expected output, owner and recovery procedure. Ask someone outside the build session to operate the example and explain how they would pause it. That practical handover is a useful test of whether the team has learned a skill it can maintain.

A proposed method for your business

How to evaluate a similar idea.

Start with your situation and a question you can test. These are evaluation steps we would discuss before choosing an implementation.

  1. 01

    Choose an owned task

    Agree the current process, the employee responsible and the outcome worth improving.

  2. 02

    Design the exception handoff

    Give the reviewer the source information and choices needed to resolve an incomplete result.

  3. 03

    Keep a small operating guide

    Record permissions, expected output, recovery steps and who to contact when something changes.

  4. 04

    Test the handover

    Have a colleague run and pause the practice workflow without help from its builder.

Industry case study / Source notes

Sources & credits.

Work credited to
DHL Global Forwarding, Freight with Capgemini
Technology / platform
UiPath
Analysis & explanation
Cactera. Company wordmarks identify the article subjects.

Independent Cactera analysis of publicly documented work. Cactera was not involved in this work. Company names identify the subjects, not Cactera clients or partners.

A relevant next step

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