How FIEC automated 70 internal processes in 3 months with Pipefy
“We needed a no code tool that could offer more autonomy and agility to the team of business analysts. That way, we could do the automation according to the demand." Débora Costa, Planning Manager
151% ROI considering time saved with automation
70 workflows automated in 3 months
The SFIEC
The FIEC System, or SFIEC, has more than 1400 employees across Ceará;
- FIEC serves the industry, but also the general public, students and unions.
The Federation of Industries of the State of Ceará, Brazil (FIEC for short in Portuguese), is the group of entities linked to the development of industry and technological education. Created in 1950, the FIEC System is part of the CNI (National Confederation of Industry) and has the role of improving the social and economic development of the state.
SFIEC brings together the Social Service of Industry (SESI); National Service for Industrial Learning (SENAI) and the Euvaldo Lodi Institute (IEL), and has more than 1400 employees throughout the state of Ceará.
In addition to serving industry sectors, SFIEC also supports the general public, individuals and companies, as well as students and unions linked to the manufacturing segment in Ceará. Their goal is to leverage the state’s industry and innovation scenario.
Challenges
Digital Transformation has become a guideline from the presidency
There were more than 500 flows to be reviewed throughout the institution
Overworked IT staff was a bottleneck for process improvements
One of our concerns was to take people from doing manual functions—which an automation tool could do on its own—and move them to focus on more strategic activities.
In early 2020, the new SFIEC board created bold goals for the institution's growth and revenue. To support this expansion, the SFIEC presidency realized they needed to promote a digital transformation across the system.
To standardize and maintain quality during the digital transformation process, one of the focus points was to optimize and automate processes in the business support areas. As a result, the “Back Office PMO” was created—a unit within SFIEC.
“With the urgency to increase revenue, we needed to have a structured back office to meet the new demands. So we looked for a process automation software that could optimize and improve our work routine even more”, says Isaac Maciel, SFIEC’s Project and Process Coordinator.
Some of the biggest challenges the Back Office team needed to overcome were manual activities, rework, time spent on processes and excessive use of paper.
“One of our concerns was to take people from doing manual functions—which an automation tool could do on its own—and move them to focus on more strategic activities. As a result, we would reduce delivery times and make the process more fluid,” says Maciel.
At the time, the team was even using workflow software, but it didn’t meet all requirements and demands as there was still dependence on the technical team to be able to operate it. The IT team received many requests aligned with other objectives from different departments of FIEC. This caused tickets to take weeks or even months to be prioritized.
Solution
Consulting with Profectum, Pipefy's partner company
HR internal requests centralized and automated
Back Office with autonomy to automate processes
We knew that automating SFIEC's Back Office processes would directly impact the institution's ability to generate more business.
The first step towards Digital Transformation was the use of agile methods to guide the project execution. This way, it became easier to detail the processes and divide them into work sprints to focus on the optimizations proposed. In 10 weeks, the team understood what could or could not be automated in the Back Office.
“We needed a no code tool that would offer more autonomy and agility to the team of business analysts”, says Débora Costa, Planning Manager. "That way, we could do the automation according to the demand."
That is how the Planning Management can count on the support of Profectum, Pipefy's partner, to present the tool and bring their know-how to the operation.
“We knew that automating SFIEC's Back Office processes would directly impact the institution's ability to generate more business. We prioritize flows with a greater impact within the organization,” says Lucas Barros, Profectum's CEO.
An example of success was the process of inspecting the car fleet. Before Pipefy, the flow was managed by paper, being susceptible to operational errors and low control. Today, the process has been automated and the vehicle fleet is checked using tablets, generating a better user experience and greater direction for decision making.
“Any damage to the vehicle is identified by photos inside the platform. With Pipefy, it became easier and faster to visualize all this data, centralizing it in one place and generating reports and control panels”, explains Maciel.
Another example is the flow of internal requests for meal vouchers. Before Pipefy, their 1400 employees used to submit requests like this by filling out paper forms. With the tool, a flow of HR requests were created and made available on the institution's intranet so everyone could easily access it. Now, there is no need for manual user interaction in this process from request to delivery.
Results
70 processes automated in 3 months
ROI of 151%
More than 200 people were involved in this first stage of the PMO Back Office
Employees were moved to more strategic functions
The acceptance has been very positive, as it is possible to see improvements for the work itself and the process flows.
In addition to empowering end-users to automate the system according to their needs, the use of Pipefy brought several improvements, such as optimizing the employees’ time, greater control of processes and reduction of rework.
“We had great results during the project, but I consider the main one to be the automation of 70 Back Office processes in three months of implementation. It is an expressive number for an institution the size of FIEC”, says Lucas Barros, Profectum's CEO.
The result of many automated processes was an ROI (return on investment) of 151%, considering only hours saved with process automation.
In addition to the business and HR areas, several other FIEC departments are being positively impacted by these changes, such as Legal, Accounting, Supplies, Finance, Planning, Engineering and the Academic Secretariat.
“The acceptance has been very positive, as it is possible to see improvements for the work itself and the process flows. With the method we used to implement the tool, we were able to directly involve more than 200 people”, explains Débora Costa.
As digital transformation is an institutional goal supported by the current presidency, the purpose of the Back Office team is to disseminate the use of Pipefy across different teams of the FIEC System. And the best part: without relying on technical knowledge to configure the platform.
"Our ambition and our challenge were to find a tool that would allow technology development outside of the technology department. It allowed us to empower our non-technical departments to put automation into practice and have more engagement from our business team. This is just the beginning of our digital transformation", says Tadeu Leandro, Technology Manager.
Next Steps
To increase the efficiency of large operations like SFIEC, the use of Pipefy is constantly being implemented in new areas.
“The objective, from the beginning, was to generate quick results. Only then would it be possible to show value to all employees of the institution and stimulate the wave of change”, comments Lucas Barros. “With this first challenge overcome, we knew that the digital transformation project would win the entire institution”, he adds.
The first areas implemented have already shown good acceptance of the platform and the platform is expected to reach all SFIEC business units.
“Due to the good user experience with Pipefy, everyone bought the idea of using the tool, and now we even say 'You need to create a Pipe for this’ when new obstacles are noticed in everyday processes”, says Isaac Maciel.
In addition to expanding usage, the second stage of the project also aims to increase efficiency through integration between tools. With the help of Profectum, the SFIEC team has the goal of integrating Pipefy with about 15 tools throughout 2021.