R&D of New Products — Low Automation

Industry

Manufacturing & Industry

Company size

Medium (50–150 employees)

Process to be automated

R&D process: ideation, prototyping, and product validation

Process description

The process includes idea generation, market research, prototype design, lab testing, technical adjustments, regulatory validation, and launch decision-making. It involves engineering, marketing, and leadership teams. It requires creativity, experimentation, and strategic decision-making under high uncertainty.

ROI Automation

Nivel de Automatización	% Automatizable	Casos al Mes	Tiempo por Caso (horas)
Low	15	1	160

Personas Involucradas	Nivel de Cargo Promedio	Salario Mensual Promedio (COP)	Costo Real Empresa con Prestaciones (COP)
6	Level 1 (Director) + Level 2 (Technical Manager) + Level 3 (Engineers)	7000000	10733000

Costo Operativo Mensual (COP)	Costo Operativo Anual (COP)	Ahorro Mensual Estimado (COP)
19319000	231828000	2897850

Ahorro Anual Estimado (COP)	Inversión Año 1 (COP)	Beneficio Neto Año 1 (COP)
34774200	10228950	24545250

Beneficio Neto Acumulado 3 Años (COP)	FTE Equivalente Liberado
83887350	0.9

Power in Numbers

240

ROI Year 1 (%)

3.5

Payback (months)

3.4

Cost/Benefit ratio

⚠️ AUTOMATE ONLY PARTIALLY

Although the ROI appears attractive, 85% of the process is creative and research work that cannot be automated. The automatable 15% corresponds to: project task tracking, test and results logging, milestone alerts, and progress report generation. We recommend implementing a project management workflow for R&D (not decision automation). The real value is not in saving hours, but in traceability and preserving institutional knowledge.

Signs of inefficiency detected

• No systematic record of what was tested and why it was discarded • Process knowledge in the heads of 1–2 key engineers • Project milestones without automatic alerts • Progress reports generated manually every 15 days

Does your R&D team lose knowledge when someone leaves? Protect it with traceability

Reserve