Digitalization Innovation

AboitizPower deploys “robots” to improve customer service and operational efficiency

July 28, 2022

Aboitiz Power Corporation (AboitizPower) made a recent technological breakthrough after concluding its Robotic Process Automation (RPA) bootcamp wherein participants successfully developed 23 “robots” meant to improve the company’s customer service and overall business operations.

Among these is a robot, created by a team member from Cebu-based distribution utility Visayan Electric, that has the capability to consolidate high-volume data from various sources and generate accurate and actionable reports.

“This process involves more than 200,000 customer records. From more than 10 hours it normally takes us to finish the task, we were able to do it in less than half an hour with the robot. That’s more than a 95 percent improvement,” said Gratz Redoble, system operations supervisor at Visayan Electric.

The RPA bootcamp trained team members from various different AboitizPower business units with some participants having minimal to no experience or knowledge in IT.

“The program really helped me gain new skills given that I had no background in programming. It opened a new interest that I would never have imagined indulging in,” said Marc Daryl Lao, Quality Assurance Specialist at Davao Light.

Not to be confused with mechanical robots, RPA technology can be described as “metaphorical software robots” that use artificial intelligence to deal with manual and repetitive tasks that would otherwise be very tedious to complete. These tasks may include capturing customer information, sifting through power outage data, and fast-tracking internal processes in the case of AboitizPower and its distribution utilities like Visayan Electric.

The newly developed robots have brought down turnaround and processing schedules across participating teams by an average of 50 percent, not only saving time, money, and effort but also freeing up team members to do more value-adding work.

AboitizPower Vice President for Innovation and Digital Transformation Chat Balita said they intend to transform the organization into a progressive and digital workplace by nurturing the culture of innovation and “digital citizenship.”

“We envision our people 'leaping' from our ordinary roles into digital skills and competencies, to be future-ready and prepared to take on the tall order of disruptive technology. This is what it means to be a digital citizen,” she added.

The RPA Bootcamp is only one of the programs under AboitizPower’s DigitaLeap program which aims to integrate innovation and digital initiatives across all its business units and inculcate a digital-ready mindset within the organization. With the Aboitiz Group’s Great Transformation towards becoming the Philippine’s first “techglomerate,” further enablement programs will take place so more team members can be upskilled with digital competencies.