Automating a company's workflow offers many benefits. For one, it can help to reduce the number of tasks employees would otherwise do manually, freeing them to work on other important non-repetitive tasks. This essentially allows more things to get done in the same amount of time. In addition, this reduction of repetitious work in an employee's day can help to increase employee motivation and productivity by making their job more interesting and allowing them to spread out into other areas of production.

Automation also helps companies to generate more accurate and consistent products. By automating areas of production, there are fewer chances of mistakes occurring. So, companies can begin generating higher quality products with more features, with little or no additional increase in production time or resources. In fact, Automation can help improve the speed of a workflow because computer programs can perform tasks much faster than humans. This offers the potential to generate more revenue with fewer expenses.

While there is usually a cost involved in developing and maintaining an automated workflow, this is easily justified by the return on investment that will be gained from the automation.

In general, the following benefits are typically achieved through workflow automation:

Read about the return on investment potential from implementing AppleScript solutions in a workflow AppleScript-ROI.

Who Can Benefit from Automation

Any company utilizing Macs in their daily workflow can benefit from workflow automation. The following are some of the many industries that are benefiting from the use of automation:

Real-World Benefits

• AppleScript allowed NASA to have the largest archive of daily radar animations available anywhere in the world.
• In TV Guide's Editorial Graphics department, it took 4 - 5 designers a week to lay out a pay-per-view listings section of the magazine. After implementing an AppleScript-based workflow, it took 1 designer about 20 minutes.
• In just three years, from 1997 to 1999, AppleScript allowed TV Guide's Ad Production department to increase their advertising volume by over 20,000 ads a year.
• In 1999, TV Guide's Ad Production department saved approximately $52,000 in supplies alone by utilizing AppleScript to automate the process of digital ad printing and proofing.
• At Piermed, Inc., the process of manually converting PDF form files for client delivery would take approximately 1 hour and 10 minutes of non-stop manual processing. Using an AppleScript-based solution, this process now takes approximately 10 minutes.
• Companies that implement fully automated workflow systems typically generate a 4.3 times return on their investment during the first year alone.
• Using AppleScript to automate a small workflow system can often result in an initial 2.8 times return on investment in the first year alone.