Air Liquide bags awards, lauded for efficiency initiatives

Air Liquide was recognised for its implementation of robotic process automation, its ALTAiR data management system, and BSC HR transformation.

Air Liquide APAC Global Services (AGS), a subsidiary of Air Liquide — a world leader in gases, technologies, and services for Industry and Health — has bagged two awards at the Malaysia Technology Excellence Awards and the Malaysia International Business Awards.

For its win in the Malaysia Technology Excellence Awards, it was recognised in the Automation - Chemicals and Data Management - Chemicals categories, whilst it was given one award in the Chemicals category at the Malaysia International Business Awards.

Leveraging robotic process automation technology

For its win in the Automation - Chemicals category, AGS was recognised for its application of robotic process automation (RPA) technology in its Delivery Order Override Project. The company leveraged technology to improve quality, standardisation, efficiency, effectiveness, and stakeholders’ experiences.

AGS implemented RPA technology, which helped to increase performance, accuracy, stability, and processing speed by automating what used to be a tedious task of manually verifying and releasing more than 700 delivery orders daily. This frees up the team from routine and transactional tasks so they can focus on more value-adding tasks to support the business.

The proposed solutions include defining standardised business rules, automating the download, verification, and release of delivery orders, and using the RPA bot to send email notifications and statements of accounts to customers on hold. This automation provides efficiency gains, time savings, and increased accuracy, leading to significant benefits for the business.

Specifically, leveraging RPA technology helped to significantly reduce costs and improve work productivity, saving an estimated 4,500 hours of manpower and corresponding €70,000 in efficiency savings per year, with a payback period of 1.6 years.

The project has seen successful deployment, with eight RPA projects already in place, twelve under development, and six in the assessment pipeline.

Air Liquide's approach to RPA has not been limited to this single use case; they have deployed or are working on more process automation projects in areas such as customer collection allocation, vendor invoice follow-up, vendor payment, fixed asset capitalisation, and more.

Real-time view of procurement activities

Meanwhile, AGS also received an award in the Data Management - Chemicals category, for the implementation of its ALTAiR (Air Liquide Tactical and Ai Report) system, which provides a real-time view of all procurement activities happening in the Asia-Pacific region.

The development of the monitoring system took 12 months, incorporating the latest technologies such as automation and artificial intelligence (AI). AILTAiR uses data generated by Air Liquide procurement systems. The APAC data is transferred every night to a server connected to ALTAiR, so the teams can access a refreshed dashboard as soon as they start working the following day.

The tool, combined with other transformations of the organisation, helped improve the key cycle times of the department by 60% and savings by 3.5%, despite high inflation in 2022.

“The success of ALTAiR triggers new innovations for 2023. We are engaging in the development of robotics and AI to expand the amount of information and parameters delivered by ALTAiR,” the company stated.

Integrated HR operating model

AGS also was recognised in the Malaysia International Business Awards for their APAC BSC (Business Service Centre) HR transformation, which implemented an integrated HR operating model to deliver a seamless employee experience, improve service levels, and create sustainable service quality.

By streamlining the different payroll process platforms into a standardised service desk, source of information entry, and ticketing tool for more than 12,000 employees from all 14 countries/regions in APAC, the company has helped to increase payroll accuracy by 99.5% and HR ticket accuracy by 99.8%, generating an estimated €72,000 in savings.

Overall, APAC BSC HR has shown exceptional performance and commitment to providing top-tier HR services to clients across the Asia-Pacific region. Its dedication to standardisation, efficiency, and customer satisfaction has led to its recognition as a World Class HR Shared Service Centre in just 18 months, from June 2021 to December 2022.

Air Liquide’s constant drive for innovation and technological competence is exemplified by its unceasing effort to promote efficiency and effectiveness in every facet of its work. The Group is perfectly situated in the centre of the markets of the future to continue its growth dynamic by striving to address the challenges of the future, motivated by the desire to truly make a difference.

With continued efforts to build demand pipelines, Air Liquide demonstrates its dedication to staying at the forefront of innovation whilst providing improved services and experiences to its stakeholders.