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Robotic Process Automation (RPA) is the concept of automating routine business processes that are otherwise manually intensive and repetitive tasks.
The āRobotā in RPA is essentially a software routine that continuously executes some preconfigured workflow such as invoice processing or back office management. Thereās really no physical Robot involved as the software does all the work with the ultimate goal to automate the business process and ideally free staff for more meaningful work that benefits the business. This promise of automation and the catchy buzzword around it has gained significant popularity in the past year or so which definitely seems to be collectively positive for the technology industry and the businesses that can benefit fromĀ RPA.
RPA hype The hype around RPA seems to be reinvigorating the process automation space. In technology new buzzwords like this can have a significant positive effect in creating momentum to further the underlying technology; weāve seen this with Big Data and Cloud solutions and more recently with Cryptocurrencies. In the case of Crypto and Blockchain the technology has basically been off the radar for the general public for quite a while. However, now with all the hype and skyrocketing crypto prices in 2017, weāve seen a huge amount of rapid innovation and a rush towards applying blockchain technologies in various use cases. The hype around RPA will have a similarĀ effect.
RPA is essentially carving its own path from the legacy of older clunky business automation solutions and drawing peopleās attention to transforming onerous processes into efficient automated routines.
What does RPA mean for humans? There is concern that RPA will eliminate certain jobs. This does have some validity as it is expected that RPA will likely reduce headcount in certain low or minimal skill areas. The counter argument is that the types of tasks RPA is great at automating really shouldnāt be done by people in the first place and implementing RPA is not only more cost effective but can also eliminate or reduce the amount of human error that impacts routine tasks. This can ultimately have a positive impact on employee engagement and may even reduce employee turnover as people will no longer have to do robotic repetitive tasks and can focus on more engaging high skilled work. One of the better phrases Iāve read recently about this advantage is that āRPA takes the robot out of theĀ humanā
Setup and types of RPA bots The RPA robots require training and some basic configuration setup before they can effectively execute a task. This ties into the various flavors of RPA. The setup process depends on the type of RPA solution youāre using, some boast about the capability to actually watch repetitive tasks and learn via AI how they should be executed on the machine. This can be highly risky as the bot may end up slightly off-track with potentially critical errors in the process so itās best to monitor and audit any RPA solution that incorporates AI. There are other solutions that record actions similar to recording a macro but with a feature to integrate with disparate applications. Beyond these recording and learning RPA applications you can simply configure a workflow, in this case youād be implementing some actions with external systems and a set of decisions to apply the workflow to the data as needed. Lastly thereās programmatic implementations, which is essentially the ages old way of business process automation which requires a stronger technically ability and someĀ coding.
What to expect? In the RPA space, we will see more benefit in the coming years as systems integrate more AI capabilities and ideally will have greater capabilities to apply some form of expert judgement in the automated processes. This synergy between AI and RPA will help in integrating intelligent processes with companiesā technology infrastructure. Right now adoption of AI is happening in some forms such as chat bots, but there does seem to be some hesitation as people not familiar with the possibilities in AI may feel it is either out of reach or too difficult to incorporate. Having the option to hook AI into an RPA bot with little or no required knowledge of AI will really help with the adoption of the technology.
When should RPA be applied? Before you try to scientifically assess whether to apply RPA, just go with your gut. If you feel that youāre doing something thatās repetitive and you wish you could just automate it and be done with it, youāre most likely right it should be automated and thereās a good chance RPA can beĀ applied.
In either case itās helpful to do some upfront analysis to understand how much your business can benefit from RPA. The most simplistic way to determine if you should apply RPA is to do a basic cost of ownership analysis and determine if itās less expensive to automate the process rather than manually running it. If cost of ownership analysis results in savings from RPA then itās basically a no brainer. However, this isnāt really the end of the story as thereās many other factors to consider and to properly assess whether RPA is applicable people should consider the Tangible and Intangible benefits. Tangible will have a direct monetary impact as noted in the prior example and intangible starts to incorporate other things. For example, if your process is subject to operational risk which could result in a significant loss due to manual error then you may have a significant intangible benefit which can save money down theĀ line.
Interested in learning more about RPA or need help with automating your business? Send us a quick note, we can provide more info or have a quick chat to help youĀ out.
Originally published at blog.auterasolutions.com on April 23,Ā 2018.
Robotic Process Automation: A Guide for Humans was originally published in Hacker Noon on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
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