Case Study: Electrocomponents plc achieves 50% faster inventory lead-times and improved customer experience with UiPath

A better experience for customers, suppliers and employees drives automation for Electrocomponents plc

Electrocomponents plc, a global distributor operating six brands (including RS) with over one million customers and 50,000 daily shipments, needed to scale operations and continuously improve customer, supplier and employee experience. To empower staff to handle more suppliers and serve more customers more reliably, the company selected UiPath and its Enterprise RPA Platform (including UiPath Orchestrator) to explore robotic process automation across inventory, content translation and order processing workflows.

Using UiPath, Electrocomponents built a hybrid 80% on‑premise/20% cloud architecture, an internal Automation Centre of Excellence and over 50 software robots that automate tasks such as content translation file exchanges, inventory code updates and shipping checks. The UiPath implementation delivered measurable impact: the first full automation went from pre‑assessment to production in under three months, inventory management lead‑times were cut by 50%, shipping cycle times for some UK ranges fell by 20%, tens of thousands of hours were returned to the business, and data accuracy and visibility significantly improved.

Electrocomponents plc

Greg Lee-Podgorski

Head of Automation, Machine Learning & Technology Platforms