A Nationwide Initiative to Introduce Robots to the Korean Agricultural Sector

There has also been a trend of trying to use RPA as a trigger for the Digital Transformation of the entire enterprise, which goes beyond the role of being a simple task assistant.

The National Agricultural Cooperative Federation currently has 1,118 Nonghyup(Agricultural Cooperative Federation) and Chukhyup (Livestock Cooperative Federation) stores and 100,000 employees nationwide.

On April 1, 2020, it launched "NH RPA Portal," a portal system in which all affiliates participate to establish Digital Nonghyup.

A new Industrial Revolution?

Manager Jae-Hong Ahn and Do-Cheol Kim work in the 4th Industrial Revolution Promotion Center, which is part of the NH NACF Future Management Research Institute. When asked about the Future Management Research Institute, Manager Ahn explained that "The 4th Industrial Revolution Promotion Center is the department that manages the overall response to the 4th industry by each affiliate of Nonghyup.

The key is to reduce the information gap between all departments and create a stepping stone for all of us to grow together by achieving a digital transformation.” Their role is to coordinate the digital transformation process with examples of large affiliates so that each member and corporation can participate together. This will also help in building external partnerships.

What is the role of RPA in NH NACF's digital transformation? "The NH Nonghyup RPA Portal, introduced by the NACF, provides a platform through which each employee gives opinions and creates the necessary RPAs centrally. These RPAs are then shared by all affiliates." On April 8, the NH Future Innovation Center was launched to support the Nonghyup and Chukhyup branches throughout the nation to achieve digital transformation. It is currently applying and suggesting RPA solutions.

How does it work?

NH Nonghyup RPA Portal is a portal site that provides all the tasks, development, and distribution related to Nonghyup RPA. The most impressive feature is that employees can suggest RPA application cases, share the application results, and download RPA bots. It is just like downloading apps from an app store, making it easy to integrate RPA bots into their work.

It was essential to save time, but it was also clear that a lot of thought and effort was put into developing a structure in which all 100,000 employees would be able to implement RPA efficiently. Furthermore, it was emphasized that even a simple task should be used by as many employees as possible. The rationale behind this strategy is that even if you shorten a process by only five minutes, efficiency is vastly improved if it is used by 100,000 people.

It is also clear why UiPath and UiPath partner TimeGate were chosen for this massive project. UiPath encompasses the system both before and after the introduction of RPA. It handles not only RPA automation development, but also the planning before RPA introduction, such as task mining (to identify and analyze tasks to be automated), task capturing (to collect data necessary for RPA production), and process mining (behavior system analysis and improvement), the collaborative relationship of robots and people, and the subsequent evaluation of automation. Based on UiPath's work, TimeGate made the portal development and script development.

TimeGate is an enterprise IT solution company that suggests the standardization of work while considering the digital transformation process after RPA application. They also prepared a detailed development methodology, which was suggested by the NACF. The NH Nonghyup RPA portal was launched through the work of both of these companies.

The NH NACF's RPA portal is still in the early stages, but this is an essential first step towards the digital transformation of all Nonghyup affiliates. Manager Ahn shared his expectations of the future: "The implementation of RPA in the form of a portal was a continuation of a difficult process. The main reason is that this was the first time it's ever been done. The results have been satisfactory, though, and I think the digital transformation of all affiliates will be successful through UiPath and TimeGate's support in the future."

The NH Nonghyup RPA Portal is the concrete realization of this. Since we have successfully taken the first step, we will go on to help the 100,000 employees of Nonghyup and Chukhyup nationwide to concentrate on their work without any sense of digital alienation

Do-Cheol Kim

"As it is our task to anticipate digital transformation and future changes, we also plan to carry out future-oriented projects based on well-defined ideas and a clear philosophy."

There is a common perception that the financial industry is the most conservative sector when it comes to the fourth industrial revolution. It is important in the financial sector to follow strict government regulations, but they also can't lose competitiveness. Besides, the threat of fintech companies that combine IT technology and finance is also rising. Inevitably, the existing financial industry is experiencing change. An era is coming in which financial firms that do not change cannot survive.

The NACF will make 2020 the first year of its digital innovation. It will then spread its digital technology to Nonghyup and Chukhyup nationwide in 2021, and start supporting RPA at the central level.

The final goal of this RPA project is to adopt digital technology for all Nonghyup and Chukhyup branches and introduce it into everyday life in 2022. This strategy will introduce RPA throughout the company to prepare it for society as it will be in the future.