[MUSIC PLAYING]
INTERVIEWER: Where did Marel and Ciphix
start there automation journey?
SANDER DE GLOPPER: Well, as Marel, back in 2019,
we really wanted to up our game, in terms
of reaching our mid-term and long term goals.
So therefore, we organized the Hekaton,
invited a couple of vendors.
And as a winner, Ciphix came out.
So ever then, Ciphix is now our partner in our journey.
And so far, it's really been an exciting journey.
INTERVIEWER: Great, and how did it all start?
MARLEEN VERHOEVEN: Yeah, I think that was
because of the Hekaton.
SANDER DE GLOPPER: It started with the Hekaton,
which then, in the end, resulted in a pilot.
So we took a pilot of a supply chain process.
And that was very well achieved within Marel.
People really got excited about it.
So that was basically our journey, our start
to take opportunities-- we like to say, the low hanging
fruit-- because the easy ones, easy to adopt,
and also easy to create some awareness within Marel,
to get our stakeholders enthusiastic about it.
So that's what we have been doing ever since.
So for, I think, approximately two years, we
worked more or less in a project waterfall kind of way,
where we finished an opportunity,
then start looking for a new one, organized our funding,
organizing our people.
And then, we moved on to take that opportunity to build
another robot, which of course-- like you know, Marleen--
we had a lot of stop times.
We had a lot of start times, basically,
non-added value time.
So that's what we've been doing as a first baby step in our RPA
journey.
MARLEEN VERHOEVEN: I think that was
for approximately 15 processes, that was just
a question from the business.
And they were asking for IT.
OK, maybe you can help us.
Then, IT what's coming to us.
And, then we were writing a business case.
And that just cost a lot of time.
And then, we had to wait for the final go.
And that was actually what we did for the last couple of 15,
20 processes.
And then, we moved towards--
oh, maybe it's a good idea to have a fixed team, that you
have just always the people there,
that we just have a couple of processes on our backlog.
And that is something we're moving to, at the moment.
We just started with a fixed team.
SANDER DE GLOPPER: Yeah, and I heard earlier this morning
also that with ASML and the NN group,
they had the same journey.
So they started off small.
They looked for people who, in the business,
are really excited.
So that it was easier to adopt and to work with the teams.
And then, also now, it's like moving
to it's like the center of excellence,
where you have a more dedicated team, like Marleen told me.
So what we've been doing up until now
is that we have established this hybrid team, where
we have Marel resources so that we are building
the knowledge in-house as well.
We're learning from Ciphix, from the technology,
from the information that they share with us.
So we're building this center of excellence.
And that really is now getting the momentum going.
So Ciphix knows better, Marel.
And Marel knows better, Ciphix.
And that really helps us now in getting
a more quicker turnaround time of getting
a process from initiation to really, like
a robot, or a digital colleague, as we call them.
Because we like, we prefer not to call them robots.
We said, well, we have new digital colleagues in Marel.
And we give them names.
So that's always a challenge and always very fun
to come up with nice names for robots.
But that's what we've been doing so far.
INTERVIEWER: And what's the name of your robot?
SANDER DE GLOPPER: Well I'm not the owner of the robot.
But I would like to have a robot for myself, as my assistant.
But we have the most funny names coming up.
Robocox, I think I heard.
MARLEEN VERHOEVEN: Yeah, and sometimes one of the managers
is also asking his team, maybe we can make some kind of pool
and just putting a lot of names on it.
And then, people can just vote which one they like.
SANDER DE GLOPPER: But what you see,
as it started really off to get great awareness within Marel.
So it really does help when you do a promotion
of a robot in another domain.
And you have this really, this more cartoon style robot,
just tell them, hi, I'm Robot X, whatever, and then
tells the story what the robot does.
What you now see is that we are getting more and more robots
in our production environment.
So it's not really now more about talking names.
Because a lot of people don't know the names,
especially on the IT side.
So we are really standardizing our processes.
And also the names of the robots are matching the processes,
having these unique identifiers matched.
So that's--
MARLEEN VERHOEVEN: Yeah, that also
makes it maybe easier for your colleagues and employees.
Then, they recognize, OK, this is, for example, this process,
and everyone immediately knows, oh,
that is within sales, or something.
That makes it really easy.
INTERVIEWER: Great, and where are you now
in your digital workforce journey?
SANDER DE GLOPPER: Marel is, I would say, still
taking small steps.
So what you see on the maturity scale of robotics
or hyperautomation, that's something
that I also saw today.
I think we are still far from our end goal.
But that's no problem because we are moving.
So if you look at what we have done up until now,
it's basically script automation.
So we took these Excel macro-based applications,
as we call them-- and we have a lot of them within our company.
We took them, we automated them.
And then, we enriched them with more capabilities.
Because we're using robots and no longer Visual Basic.
So that's, I think, one of the big steps we took.
I still see that we have still quite some opportunities
on that level.
But we are also now looking at the next step in our automation
journey.
And that is looking at AI integration.
Maybe you can share a little bit more.
Because we have done two of them already now.
MARLEEN VERHOEVEN: Yeah, if I hear
you saying that, I think right now,
it's not really a matter of if we have enough processes.
Because there are many cases, that's not the problem.
But it's really about how can we make people aware
that they can really use it, and that the technology is there.
Because that translation to really integrate it
into the current processes, that's really difficult.
So I think that's the stage where we are right now.
And sometimes, we have, for example, an intake for RPA,
and then people are asking us a lot of things.
For example, oh, I get an invoice,
how can I make sure that I get the right information
from that invoice?
Because I need to use that information, and I
have to put it into a system.
And that's more the phase that we are right now in.
And then, we have to think, OK, maybe
this is not really something for RPA.
But what are the technologies do we have?
And then, you see that people are also, I think,
making steps in making progression.
Because they also notice, maybe there
are many other things we can do besides the RPA.
SANDER DE GLOPPER: And I think that is exactly--
what we actually want in the end is that the business comes
to us with their use cases.
And that it's then up to us, being
in IT or in the center of excellence, of hyperautomation
center of excellence, to determine this is
going to be the best solution.
So are we going to build QNAP, or are we
going to give you something on the local platform?
Or maybe RPA, added to ML or AI, is going
to be the best fit for you.
So we really want the business to come to us, instead of we're
exploring opportunities within the business, which
is also a good thing.
Because we have an RPA network that we're building.
So we have people with their eyes and ears in the business
and in our regions, that will come to us saying that we
think here is an opportunity.
Sometimes opportunities start even really small,
like locally or in a region.
And because of the complexity of Marel,
we acquire two times a year, another company.
So we have a lot of legacy systems,
as we call them today, which means
a lot of opportunities for RPA.
But still, RPA is going to be like that.
I think they have to stay for many years within Marel.
And we're not there yet on our dot on the horizon.
INTERVIEWER: And what are the goals for the near future?
SANDER DE GLOPPER: Yeah, like I said already,
I think the goals is still to grow and extend
the knowledge within Marel, when it comes to RPA.
I think I heard earlier today-- and this is,
I really like that, is to save a million hours by 2025.
So I'll put that in mind.
I'll take it back home and see if that is still something
that we, as Marel, can also achieve.
So you and I need to talk about that, which is interesting.
MARLEEN VERHOEVEN: Read beneath those insights.
SANDER DE GLOPPER: Read beneath those insights.
But yeah, I think what we really want
to say is that RPA, in the near future,
it's going to be something.
It's going to be there to stay.
It's going to move away from being just a project,
to something that is more like in our toolbox
that we can still use.
Like I said, hyperautomation center,
I think that is exactly what we want to achieve.
Our CIO is already really keen about that.
I heard a lot of things today that we definitely
can use also.
What is a UiPath going to do about that in the near future,
interesting to explore.
MARLEEN VERHOEVEN: And I also think, we--
actually before, we more started as a RPA team.
But at the moment, it doesn't really
feel like that, more like automation team.
We just discover a lot of processes,
and then we just involved a lot of people
from Marel, for example, application specialists.
And then, we're just kind of comparing all the solutions,
and which one is the best.
And that's not always RPA.
Sometimes, it's also another.
SANDER DE GLOPPER: It can be outsystems.
Or it can be like a user interface
in front of what the robot does, a robot really working
on the back end.
So that's really that automation team is better.
MARLEEN VERHOEVEN: And we're really
looking for the best solution.
INTERVIEWER: And what are some of the challenges
that you've come across so far?
SANDER DE GLOPPER: Well, we have a lot of challenges.
[LAUGHTER] The challenge is still--
in the beginning the challenges were definitely around budget.
I think that resolved.
So we got the right stakeholders now involved, and also
promoting RPA for us, so that's good.
So budget is no longer the biggest challenge.
I think the biggest challenge today
is find really the most added value opportunities for RPA.
We had a chat earlier this afternoon about it.
Because every now and then, we do
take opportunities on board, saying, OK, we believe you.
Because we believe that this is the best opportunity.
It's really, like, fact based.
So one of the things we talked about
is process mining might be something that is really
something that we will do.
Other challenges, of course, is getting
the right resources from the business,
from IT, working on it.
So the dedicated team, the hybrid team
that we now have, together with Ciphix,
is really upping our game on that level.
So I think that's really--
we're kind of challenged in that challenge.
And still, within Marel, with all the other initiatives,
and the big programs that we're doing,
and the ambition that we have, it's
always going to be a challenge to get the right resources.
But as long as you get people aware of RPA and the advantages
of RPA, so that RPA is not a robot that will take away
your job, but a robot that's going
to be like your digital colleague,
helping you so that you can do more added value things,
instead of the repetitive things.
As long as you promote that message, then
I think we have a lot of challenges still left.
MARLEEN VERHOEVEN: Yeah, and sometimes,
that just takes a lot of time.
And you just need to be patient.
INTERVIEWER: Great.
Well, thank you for your time.
MARLEEN VERHOEVEN: Thank you too.
INTERVIEWER: And we hope you enjoy the rest of the event.
SANDER DE GLOPPER: We will, thank you very much.
INTERVIEWER: Thank you.
All right, bye.