Bilkollektivet, an innovative operator in the automotive industry, has grown impressively in just a few years, having increased its turnover almost fivefold. Technology is developing in many ways, and in recent times has led to more and more manual work being transferred from humans to automation.
Bilkollektivet is a Norwegian non-profit organisation that provides shared vehicles as an alternative to private car use. The organisation promotes a greener and better environment by reducing the number of cars on the roads, which also cuts down on unnecessary driving and pollution.
Bilkollektivet CEO Morten Munch-Olsen first heard about software robotics and Rajobit through recommendations. A Finnish-based, internationalising intelligent automation service company seemed like a very suitable partner.
“We wanted to try out automation to see if it would suit our business and help us grow. Rajobit’s prices were very affordable, so the risks were small and the threshold for adopting the system was low. As the project progressed, I also noticed that Rajobit’s team was great to work with—everything was flexible, adaptable, and fast.”
Humans hard to find for routine tasks
It quickly became clear at Bilkollektivet that in order to develop their business, staff should be freed up for more complex work requiring brain power rather than having them work on mind-numbing routine tasks.
Sometimes introducing automation can cause the personnel to fear for their jobs. At Bilkollektivet, these fears were quickly dispelled through open communication.
“In discussions with our staff, we emphasised that we weren’t introducing a robot to replace humans – no one would lose their job. Instead, Rajobit’s intelligent automation would help us lighten the accumulated workload and eliminate any boring or repetitive tasks,” Munch-Olsen says.
The organisation had previously considered hiring more staff to help take care of the backlog. In Norway, however, many have noticed how difficult it is to find people to do tedious, routine tasks and keep them motivated. Recruiting is expensive and time-consuming, and in many cases only temporary staff can be found. And as Munch-Olsen points out, the work that automation are given to do is not even healthy for humans.
Faster invoicing with fewer delays
As Bilkollektivet’s rapid growth continued, the company soon noticed that the sudden increase in workload couldn’t be taken care of manually.
This was particularly evident with invoicing.
“As soon as a driver parked in the area where parking was automatically monitored, an invoice was sent to the car owner – Bilkollektivet. After this, an employee had to check the user’s details in our reservation system and send them the invoice,” Munch-Olsen explains.
But as the company grew, the corresponding increase in the number of invoices became too much for one person to process. Moreover, these tasks were tiresomely repetitive.
This is where Rajobit came in: an automation project was swiftly launched in autumn 2021, and only took about a week to complete. Rather than giving it the entire backlog to work through right away, the automation was given a smaller number of invoices to start with. Once things were running smoothly, the workload was scaled up.
“Rajobit was really fast in supplying our digital assistant. It reads incoming invoices, checks the reservation system to see who is using each vehicle and how long parking takes, and sends the invoice. This is really something unique, it’s amazing!”.
Invoicing backlogs are now a thing of the past, as customers are charged faster and with less of a delay. As a result, Bilkollektivet is better able to manage its growth.
The investment repaid itself in only two months or so. And since there was no need to build a separate integration into the system, Bilkollektivet was also able to save money on development costs. As long as it is given a username and password to log in, the robot can work in the same system environment as humans.
Rajobit’s automation prevents misuse
Bilkollektivet’s experience with the first digital assistant supplied by Rajobit was so positive that they soon ordered another one. The second automation was developed to detect misuse of fuel cards.
It checks the transactions and reservations made with the cards every day, and any anomalies are automatically detected and reported.
“With the help of the automation, we can spot misuse of fuel cards quicker than before. This allows us to either charge users for the actual use of cards or at least prevent any further theft.”
A digital assistant gets it right every time
The big advantage of automation is that it performs more consistently than humans: the same tasks are done the same way every time, with no slip-ups. Munch-Olsen gives an example:
“Once when I was using Bilkollektivet’s parking service as a customer myself, I was sent an invoice where the payment details didn’t make it clear what I was being charged for. I thought there must be a problem with our Rajobit digital assistant and wondered if the same mistake was being made in how other customers were invoiced.
I decided to go to the office to see what was up. We had recently made some changes to our processes, and it crossed my mind that our staff might not have yet reviewed the end result once they had been put into effect.
When I looked into it at the office, I was surprised to find out that our digital assistant was working just as it should – the invoicing mistake was due to human error, as it had been manually issued by a member of our staff.”
Automation surpasses expectations
According to Munch-Olsen, Rajobit’s intelligent automation has made the parking process more predictable. The automation always performs the task the same way, and customers are invoiced quicker.
“It’s easier for our customers to see exactly what they’re being charged for when the invoice comes soon after parking the vehicle, rather than a month later.”
In Munch-Olsen’s view, Rajobit’s service model created a very low threshold for adopting intelligent automation. It took very little time to set up, and the costs were reasonable. All in all, Rajobit’s automation has really helped Bilkollektivet grow.
“The delivery of the robot and its effectiveness exceeded all my expectations.”