Coro­na­vi­rus applica­tion proces­sing robot

Kaupunkikuva

The Busi­ness Oulu busi­ness ser­vices unit com­mis­sio­ned a softwa­re robot to speed up the proces­sing of coro­na­vi­rus bene­fit applica­tions for pri­va­te ent­repre­neurs. The robot auto­ma­tical­ly distri­bu­tes the applica­tions between the case officers, spee­ding up the process workflow.

Depen­ding on the day, the city regi­stry recei­ved from seve­ral to dozens of applica­tions for the bene­fit, all of which the robot process distri­bu­ted to case officers in a mat­ter of a few minu­tes wit­hout errors. “The savings in wor­king hours we were able to achie­ve whi­le retai­ning relia­bi­li­ty are sig­ni­ficant, and allow us to focus our resources on the actual assess­ment of the applica­tions, neces­sa­ri­ly a human process. For the ent­repre­neurs in need of assis­tance, it’s impor­tant we process their applica­tions as quickly as pos­sible”, says Busi­ness Oulu Ser­vice Mana­ger Mari Rau­tiai­nen. The robot was desig­ned and deplo­yed on an acce­le­ra­ted sche­du­le. “A month ago we were had our first design mee­ting, and alrea­dy the robot is hard at work. It’s great we at the city can car­ry out agi­le pro­jects like this when we need to.”

The pro­ject was car­ried out in con­junc­tion with Oulun Digi and Q‑Factory. Oulun Digi was res­pon­sible for pro­ject coor­di­na­tion and the tech­nical envi­ron­ment, Q‑Factory for deve­lo­ping the robot itself. “It takes good teamwork to car­ry a pro­ject through. We had an easy time of it with the able per­son­nel at Q‑Factory. They were capable of quickly reac­ting to a varie­ty of needs”, says Rau­tiai­nen.

Self-emplo­yed ent­repre­neurs wit­hout emplo­yees who­se eco­no­mic circums­tances and reve­nues have sig­ni­ficant­ly decli­ned due to the coro­na­vi­rus epi­de­mic star­ting from the 16th of March, 2020 were eli­gible for a 2000 € bene­fit from their munici­pa­li­ty of domici­le to sup­port them through the coro­na­vi­rus-induced dis­rup­tion in busi­ness. For Oulu, the bene­fit applica­tions were proces­sed by Busi­ness Oulu busi­ness ser­vices. The applica­tions were open until 30 Sep­tem­ber 2020.

By the 4th of June, 2020, 1,185 applica­tions had been recei­ved. Of the­se 1,175 were distri­bu­ted for proces­sing and 1,090 deci­sions made.