Digitalization of the student ticket application process
Manual processes are the main driver of inefficiency and often result in long lead times, process errors and a lack of transparency. Within this demo case, a large transportation company faced the challenge of digitalizing one of its manual processes. KPMG's years of experience and in-depth expertise with RPA (=Robotic Process Automation) facilitated targeted digitalization. The focus of the automation was on the application process for student public transport tickets. The process was characterized by a large number of manual process steps, many process participants and long lead times.
First, the student visited the website of the public transport company and entered their personal data before going to the secretary's office to hand in the printout. The school then filled out the school certificate and sent it by mail to the school administration office for further processing. After receiving the file, the office manually entered the information on the certificate into the system and sent the file by post to the transport company. Here the applications were again manually entered into the system before the tickets could finally be created and sent out to the students.
KPMG's Center of Excellence reduced the bureaucratic effort and waiting times, minimized processing errors and encouraged faster interaction between the participants.
The process accelerated by RPA is now as follows:
The students start by applying for the ticket via the online system for student ticket applications created by the transport authority. After all the information has been entered into the portal, the data is transmitted electronically to the school administration office. In the automated process, the software bot receives the applications and sends them to the student data directory. Now the bot checks if all conditions are fulfilled, i.e. the school certificate, the age limit, the distance and how many siblings the student has. If all conditions are met, the bot sends the request electronically to the public transport company. Here another bot receives the request and creates a QR code that is used as an electronic student ticket. The bot then sends this QR code directly to the student's cell phone.
Using state-of-the-art RPA software solutions, KPMG's Center of Excellence enables a transparent process with short processing times and minimal bureaucracy. As a result, administrative staff can dedicate more of their time to value-adding activities.