GA 286 | Lean and Robotic Process Automation with Saif Arshad

The business and the people need to be empowered to improve their own processes and the business essentially needs to see a lean as a way to achieve their goals and deliver more value to their customers. It shouldn't seem like another initiative that they have to work on today.

I'm excited to welcome Seth Arshed to the show now as he'll explain early in the show. Seth works for the Market Intelligence division of S and P Global and their center for Automation, Robotics and Extraction team. During the show, Seth and I explore many different topics including how their lean journey began, how they're leveraging robotic process automation, cognitive automation and lean to improve all aspects of their business. To be sure, Seth and I covered a lot of interesting ground and we definitely had a lot of fun. The show notes, which will include links to everything we talk about, can be found over@gembapodcast.com just look for episode two. And as always, if you haven't already done so, please do check out GEMBA Academy's Lean Learning solutions with a fully functional three day trial over at gembaacademy.com okay, enough from me. Let's get to the show. Seth, welcome to the show. How are you?

Thank you. And I'm doing good. Thank you for having me. This is a great opportunity and I'm very excited to be on the podcast.

Yeah. Thank you for joining. Right now it's 9:42am Central Standard Time here in Texas in the United States. And I understand it's a little bit later for you, right?

It is, it is. It's 7:42 in the evening where I am. I'm in Islamabad, Pakistan.

Nice, nice. Well, this technology, we were joking ahead of time. Is amazing. It sounds like you're next door to me here in Dallas or something. You know it's Skype to the rescue, right? So absolutely, yeah. Well, thank you so much for coming on. I have really interested to explore our conversation today. But before we do that, Seth, let's just go ahead. I know you listen to the show and we like to kind of kick things off with our guest sharing a quotation. So do you have one?

Yeah. So I mean in terms of lean or problem solving, one of my favorite quotes is fall in love with the problem, not the solution. It's by Yuri Levine. I hope I'm pronouncing that name correctly, but I really stand by that quote in the sense that a lot of times when we are solving complex problems, we tend to think too much about the tool that we are trying to use or have these preconceived notions about the problem. So that's why I keep repeating that quote and I keep sharing that quote, whoever I meet.

Good, good, good, Good stuff. Good stuff. All right, so, Seth, tell us about where you work, and then we'll get into that first, and then we'll get into your background.

Sure. So I work with a company called S and P Global, which is headquartered in New York, and we also have a divisional headquarter in Charlottesville, VA. And S& P Global is a financial technology company which provides intelligence to companies and governments and individuals. And we have offices across 34 countries, and we have about 24,000 employees, a very diverse group of people coming from all sorts of geographies and backgrounds. So it's very exciting place to work with. Mm.

And talk about the. I mean, so people hear S and P, so they automatically, probably, if they're in America, at least think of s and P500. So talk about the different divisions of S and P Global.

Sure. So S and P has four divisions. One division that I think a lot of people will be very familiar with is the S and P Ratings Division. We also have S and P Dow Jones, then we have S and P Platts, and S and P Market Intelligence. So there's a total of four divisions.

Got it, got it. Okay. And what do you do for S and P Global?

So I am part of a team called Operations Enablement. And as the name suggests, we enable business to provide more value to our customers. And the team that I'm part of is called the center for Automation, Robotics, and Extraction. So it's your classic coe, but my primary job is that I oversee the Continuous Improvement Program for the Market Intelligence division.

So, okay, tell us about your background and then. And how you first got introduced to all this continuous improvement stuff.

Sure. So I started with S and P Global back in 2012, and at the time, this was SNL Financial before we got acquired and are now S and P Global. And we were at the time obviously headquartered in Charlottesville. As I mentioned, I have always been in sort of the people management, operations management area. So I was managing teams of people who were in the data business. I think in. I'm trying to make sure my dates are correct, but I think in 2016, I got the opportunity to work with my current manager indirectly. So as part of. As an extension of my day job, I was asked to be part of the Lean Program, the Continuous Improvement Program. And I, Although I was always interested in process improvement in general, I wasn't very familiar with lean practices and this was sort of a great opportunity, a completely new subject matter for me, which I'm sure you can tell by now I was really excited by. And I eventually decided to work directly with my manager in this team. And you know, very recently, actually last year, I started to oversee the continuous improvement program.

Okay, well, let's talk a little bit about your continuous improvement program and maybe the journey that S and P has taken. So, I mean, let's maybe begin at the start, like how, you know, how did you guys get involved with Lean? How did you hear about it and what did you do in the beginning?

Yeah, another great question. So now, and I'll talk specifically about the market intelligence area, because that's the area obviously I look at mainly. We are sort of in our three plus years journey, Lean journey, and it's been a great journey so far. Mi, just to give you some context, is almost 10,000 plus people. So that gives you some context into the book of process that we have. We have a lot of processes, a lot of handoffs, a lot of stakeholders, and we just needed a good way to be able to continuously improve our processes and also provide a methodical approach to our employees where they could be empowered to look at their processes and also improve them without having the need to go to a technology team or the use of technology. So that's where the Lean program came in and we use the Kaizen methodology. For me, that's a great way to bring a diverse group of people with diverse opinions together, which includes people who are directly related to the business. There are also people who necessarily don't even know what the process is. And everybody brainstorms the best way to deliver value to the customer. So far we have been doing really, really well. The program continues to gain a lot of traction for us. It's been a people first approach. I think what's worked for us is based on my understanding. A lot of times the continuous improvement of the Lean program is consolidated under a CoE team, which has a group of people that go around the business and essentially work on improving processes. We don't operate that way. Ours is a very federated, a very democratized model where we believe in enabling. As I said, the name of the team is Operations Enablement. We believe in enabling our business to improve their processes. So we essentially do trainings, transfer of knowledge, transfer expertise, and then enable them to operate on their own to improve their processes, automate their processes and all of that.

Okay, so give me an example, Seth, of, of a process that you guys might look at and and, and, or maybe you can tell a story of a, some, some area of your business or some process that you, that you identified as an opportunity and, and how you, and how you went about improving it. I think that'll give context to, to our listeners.

No, absolutely. So these can be as small as, you know, creating standard work, even as small as creating a checklist. And then we have also had processes which involved a variety of stakeholders and functions. For example, the recruitment process is also something that we have looked at and improved and have had gains, a lot of gains from that. So there's also processes in sort of our commercial teams and our product teams. So those are all areas that are lean program touches and helps improve. I don't know if I could sort of give a very specific process specific example, but I'm trying to think sort of what I can share.

Yeah, I know, I understand a lot of it's probably confidential.

It's confidential and there's also sort of the proprietary aspect to it. So. Yeah, yeah, but like I said. So the reason. So because our model is federated and democratized, we have been able to enable all types of businesses. Because the other approach to this is that you put together a coe, a group of people that then would go to, let's just say a cash to order process or a recruitment process or a offboarding process or any other process and they would try and improve that process. In my very personal opinion, that does not work. The business and the people need to be empowered to improve their own processes and the business essentially needs to see a lean as a way to achieve their goals and deliver more value to their customers. It shouldn't seem like another initiative that they have to work on.

Talk a little bit about. Before we hit record, we were just talking more about how you guys operate and you mentioned rpa. What is RPA and how does this process play into this whole movement?

So we were very strategic about doing this. But so as I said, the team that I work with is called center for Automation, Robotics and Extraction. And we work across the company on lean, so continuous improvement, rpa, Robotic process automation, and also cognitive automation. And the reason we did that is we think of these all as tools that can enable, like I said, the business to deliver more value to the customer. So for us, it's all sort of in the same life cycle of solving complex problems for our business. We are sort of two years into our two plus years into our RPA journey. And the reason we moved into RPA was around the same premise is that we could empower our people to improve and automate their process really, really quickly without having to wait for a technology team to come in and improve something for them.

And so rpa, correct me if I'm wrong, I actually had to look it up to make sure I understood what it meant. So here's the definition that Google has told me. It says robotic process automation is the use of software with artificial intelligence and machine learning capabilities to handle high volume, volume repeatable tasks that previously required humans to perform. These tasks can include queries, calculations, and maintenance of records and transactions. How's that? How did Google do?

I think that's pretty accurate.

Okay, see, Google knows everything.

Okay, it does, it does. But sort of at the very basic level, you can think about rpa, as we call it, taking the machine out of the human. So we see RPA as a way to automate sort of the more routine tasks that otherwise a human would have to do. So we see RPA as a way to sort of augment everything that our people are doing and enabling them to do more complex, sort of more cognitive tasks, if you want to put it that way.

I know it's not the same thing, but I can't help but think I just watched Last Night a YouTube video of, or this story of this company that was recently scammed by these artificial intelligence experts who I somehow captured the voice of the CEO of this company. And. And then they programmed this artificial intelligence machine, or whatever you want to call it, to speak like the CEO. And so the robot guy called up one of the workers at this company, and the worker thought it was the CEO because it sounded exactly like him and said, transfer, I don't know, all this money to this something or this bank account somewhere. And they did it. And then so they were showing another example of where this AI company took Joe Rogan. You know, Joe Rogan, he's this podcast guy here in. In the States. He's very popular podcast guy. And, and they, and they mimicked his voice, and it was exactly like his voice. So, I mean, obviously it can be used for bad, right? But anything, anything can obviously can be used for bad. But. But it's, it's, it's just incredible, the technology and what we can do now. And that's just one simple example, I'm guessing. But yeah, it just blew my mind of how fast the world is evolving here with this artificial intelligence.

No, absolutely. So the way we see RPA and cognitive automation, like I said, is a way to solve complex problems for our business and deliver more value to our customers. And I'll give you one very specific example of the way RPA has transformed the way people work is a year or two back there would be an analyst, a research analyst, for example, and a lot of their time would be spent refining data or curating data or even pulling data and sort of working with Excel sheets. And they would have then less time to actually analyze the data, which was their job, the primary job. But now they can, with the use of bots, they can essentially automate a lot of those routine tasks, Excel manipulation and all of that, and then spend more time on more higher value work, which is analyzing the data and creating reports and creating analyses.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So talk a little bit about. I understand you have a mantra which is lean before automation. Talk about that. What does that mean?

Yeah, no, so I mean this is I'm sure not just our mantra. If you Google that as well, if you look it up, there's a lot of good literature around that. But why it's important for us is because we are very heavily invested in sort of our RPA journey and we want to make sure that as we automate a lot of our processes, we are not automating the bad processes. So as part of our implementation process, looking at the process and improving the process, essentially a lean intervention is mandatory for all of our RPA initiatives. So before we go in and automate any piece of the process, we make sure that it's looked at and there's a lean expert looking at the process, making sure there's no value leakages, you know, there's no non value, no waste in the process. That sort of. The advantage is twofold. One, obviously you get better ROI from the overall time that you spend on improving and automating the process. But also that's more sustainable and more long term.

Yeah, I mean it's so common and so easy to automate waste. Right. And we definitely don't want to do that, but it's easier said than done. Right. And I suppose it's a, it's a, it's a constant battle because even if you have some systems operating, I'm sure you can go examine them, even if they are with bots, that they're probably not waste free.

Right.

So it's maybe it's continuous improvement of even how your, your, your, your, your robotics are operating.

Right. And I think in one of the, before sort of we started recording, I mentioned one of the podcasts where I think it was Olu who said something around putting it under the rug when you're sort of automating and not improving the process. I agree that even when we have automated a process, it's still a process. So the rules of lean still apply. Regardless of whether it's a bot doing it or a human being doing it. You have to still continuously go back and take a fresh look at the process because at the end of the day, eventually it's a human consuming that output. It may not directly be that specific output, but the eventual output, our customers are still human. There will still be areas where we can improve, there will still be areas where we can automate. So it's always good to go, go back and take a fresh look at the process.

Got it. So Seth, the last topic that I want to explore today is process mining. What is process mining?

So process mining. And I'm sure Google will have a.

See what Google says. Yeah, I'll look it up while you talk.

Then. I would. But essentially process mining helps improve the way we surface problems in the business. So I mean I would think a classic way of doing lean and automation would be something like and on. I hope I pronounced that right. But essentially a way to say that, way to empower your employees where they can say that there's a problem in the process. But with the growing complexity in our processes and the growing spread where people are based in different geographies, work different hours, you need a more methodical approach or a more systematic approach to that process mining. A process mining tool will essentially, among other things, allow you to create as is states of your various processes and essentially surface a book of process. In a lot of companies like ours, which are very, very old and have a lot of legacy systems at play. It also helps give a real time picture of how value is flowing from one system to the other and really allows the various stakeholders involved in that value chain to continuously look at and determine what they can prioritize in terms of optimization and automation.

So what's your opinion on process mining and how it might interact with continuous improvement in the future?

I'll be honest, it's not like I am fully aware of how every company out there is looking at continuous improvement. But for the most part, I think some of the problems that process mining can solve for these companies, including ours, is where right now you would improve a process, but then you're dependent on on people to really come back and come back and improve the process or report out on the improvement over time. But process mining really automates a lot of those steps. So I think for any company that wants to scale their optimization and automation effort, process mining is going to be crucial.

So just a general question as it relates to artificial intelligence, rpa, cognitive automation, all these things that we've been talking about, even lean, how do you see the world evolving over the next, I don't know, 5, 10, 15, 20 years? In 20 years from now, what will people be doing? What will our jobs be? Because obviously, you know, artificial intelligence is, you know, almost unlimited and what it could do, right, like, so I'm, I'm just genuinely clear, like, what is your opinion? Like, where do you think the world is headed?

Oh, man.

So I know it's a big question. It's a big question.

It's a very big question.

Yeah.

And I'm obviously not a thought leader in any space, let alone AI or machine learning or Lean. But there was this very interesting debate recently between Jack Ma and Elon Musk. I don't know if you read about it or was able to. And it was very interesting in the sense that you had these two opposing viewpoints from two very powerful people, if I might say, in terms of their impact, thought leaders, you know, in terms of their influence, in terms of the people they follow, the people's lives they impact. And I think that's where we are today, is you have a school of thought who feels that AI and automation are going to continue to augment. As I said, automation for us is taking the machine out of the human. So that's the school of thought where I stand. But there is people who are, who feel that everything that we do will be automated. The reason why I continue to believe that automation and AI and these other technologies are going to augment how we deliver value to our customers is because I feel that our customers are going to continue to be human. And as long as our customers are human, I think methodologies like Lean. By the way, when I say Lean, I don't mean a particular set of tools, I mean the mindset. I think that's also very important to clarify is that I'm specifically pointing out to the mindset and I think that's going to be very relevant. So that's where I stand on that.

I mean, you see the TV shows and Netflix movies or whatever, or the Futurist, these people walking around and they're AI robots and they think they're real. And you know, and it's like, oh, is that gonna, you know. But yeah, I mean, some of this is science fiction, obviously, but then you wonder is like, is it really?

So I mean, the pace at which things are changing. You never know what's. I mean, I don't know what I will be doing in 20 years, so I can't really comment on what the world is going to look like and what others are going to be doing. But I know whatever, for example, for me, I'm still going to be passionate about delivering value, either directly to people or as part of a business and doing that. And I think as long as we think in that way, I think the world is going to be a great place 20 years from now.

Yeah, well, and it's what's interesting of the example that you talked about with your analyst. You know, we want to. Within Lean, we talk a lot about respect for people and enabling our people to do their highest level work. Right. And so if we can use automation, we can use tools, we can use artificial intelligence to help people, you know, elevate their value that they can bring, you know, then I think that's only. It can only be good. I feel like the people who are resistant to this are. They're typically very emotional people and they're protective, you know, they don't like change and it's scary, you know, and, and yeah, so I think we, I think there's a balance obviously, when, in everything, right. You know, something could be. AI can be used for good, but can also be used for evil. Right, but so can a lot of things. Right? So can a lot of things.

No, I agree with that and I, I think that's why I referred to that podcast you had on the community of practice for Lean. I think it's very, very important that whether it's Lean or automation or any other of these initiatives, it's people first. So people really, it's not just about optics. You need to be genuinely. If I were to talk about the five things that are sort of always in front of me, these are sort of objectives that we had set out to achieve in 2019. And 2020 is going to look very. The first one is empowering people to improve processes with ease. That's the first line. And then there are four others as well. But those are the five objectives I stand by. And ours is truly a people first approach. I think the success of the Lean program that we have had in our company is because we initially. So the way we approach it is you first focus on building a culture, but that doesn't happen on day one. So you start with a common mission, you then build a baseline of literacy around Lean, and then you focus on execution and sort of get people in the execution mode get people excited around the objective, and that's when you eventually build the culture. Just before the podcast, I was talking to somebody, I'm in the office, and they said that culture can. Culture will always beat strategy.

Strategy for breakfast, right? That's what they say. Exactly.

Yeah, exactly. So I think it's. I think for us, the success has been our people. We put a lot of focus in recognizing the people who contribute to the community, and it's really been a people first job approach and that's what I feel everybody should focus on.

Got it. So good. So good. Well, Seth, thank you so much for coming onto the show. I know it's the evening time there for you, so thank you for staying late and sharing your story with us. If folks want to connect with you, I know you're on LinkedIn. That's how we connected. So is that the best way for folks to connect with you?

Yes. I'm also on Twitter, but I'm usually just reading stuff on Twitter. I'm not very active.

A lurker. You're a lurker, right?

Yes. LinkedIn is the platform of choice.

Okay. And I'll spell your name for folks who are just listening. Seth is S, A I F, and then your last name is A R, S H, A D. Is that right? Okay, so. And we're gonna hit. We'll go ahead and link to, to this and to everything else that we talked about in the, in the show notes. So this is episode. What is this? 286. So gumbo podcast dot com. Just look for episode 286 and we'll have all the, all the good stuff to connect with. Seth. So again, Seth, hey, next time you're ever over to the States, do you get, do you go to get over much?

I'm actually going to be there in October, but I'll be in New York and Charlottesville primarily.

Okay. Okay. Well, if you're ever down in Texas, come look us up. We'll go, well, we'll take you out to dinner, show you what Texas is all about. I know that the heat won't be too bad for you because you're used to that, I guess.

I love a good barbecue, so that's a good.

Okay, well, we got that. We got that. We definitely have that. Well, yeah. So thank you again, Seth. Keep up the great work. Perhaps we can connect again and down the road and, and see what's up with, with RPA and, and Lean and all this kind of fun stuff.

Absolutely. And keep, you know, putting out this great content. I know I, you know, I speak on behalf of me and a lot of other people who consume a lot of the content that Jamba produces, not just the podcasts, but obviously, you know, the articles and other stuff as well. So thank you for doing that.

Oh, you're welcome. You're. Well, yeah, that's what's amazing about this, this platform, you know, is that we can, we can reach people literally all over the world. Right. And, and then we can, we can talk with each other. See, you know, amazing technology, right? What it can do. Great. All right, well, thanks again, Seth. Keep up the great work and enjoy your evening.

Thank you. Have a good one.

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