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Robotic Process Automation Implementation Challenges

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DOI: 10.1007/978-981-15-7990-5_29

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 Robotic Process Automation Implementation
Challenges

Daehyoun Choi, Hind R’bigui, Chiwoon Cho

School of Industrial Engineering, University of Ulsan, Ulsan 680-749, Republic of Korea

[email protected], [email protected], [email protected]

Abstract: Robotic process automation (RPA) is a new technology

that enables the automation of high-volume, manual, repeatable,
routine, rule based and unmotivating human tasks. The main goal of
RPA is to replace tedious human tasks with a virtual workforce or a
digital worker performing the same work as the human worker was
doing. This allows human workers to focus on difficult tasks and
problem solving. RPA tools are considered simple and powerful for
specific business process automation. However, since the technolo-
gy is still emerging, RPA faces some challenges during the imple-
mentation. This paper provides an overview of RPA and its chal-
lenges.

Keywords: Robotic Process Automation, RPA, Software Robot, Digital

workforce.

1 Introduction

Robotics Process Automation (RPA) system enables organizations to automate

high-volume, repeatable, and unmotivated mass of tasks just like the human user
was performing across systems and applications, through the usage of graphical
user interfaces. The main objective of robotic process automation is to substitute
with a virtual workforce the repetitive and routine tasks handled by humans allow-
ing them to focus more on valuable tasks and problem solving. RPA is defined as
a category of tools that enable users to specify deterministic routines involving
structured data, rules (if then-else), user interface interactions, and operations ac-
cessible via APIs [1]. RPA reduces labor-intensive processes through simulating
human effort to perform tasks, speeding-up the execution of high-volume transac-
tional process [2]. An example of clerical tasks; as-is process; performed by a hu-
man is depicted in Figure 1. The to-be process performed by a robot is illustrated
in Figure 2. The to-be workflow looks like the as-is workflow, but it is optimized
by using background tasks for sorting and filtering.
2

This work presents the components of Robotic process automation, its ad-
vantages, and some application area, as well as the challenges encountered during
the implementation of this later.

Fig1. Example of clerical tasks performed by a human

Fig2. Example of clerical tasks performed by a robot

2 RPA Components

Robotic process automation technology consists of three main elements: 1) RPA

Robots; virtual workforce; for executing repetitive human tasks, 2) RPA Orches-
trator for monitoring and managing the virtual workforce, and 3) RPA Studio for
designing the workflow to be executed by the virtual workforce. The main com-
ponents are illustrated in Figure 3.

2.1. RPA Robots

RPA Robots are virtual workers which perform the repetitive tasks of an employ-
ee. RPA Robots are dedicated to handle unmotivated mass of tasks so that em-
ployees can engage in valuable jobs and problem solving. There are two types of
RPA robots, attended robots and unattended robots.

Attended Robots
Attended Robots are robots designed to work side by side with a human user for s
peeding up repetitive tasks where the tasks can be triggered by the human user. It
can be used in repetitive, manual, and highly rule-based tasks which requires hum
an intervention for decision points.

Unattended Robots
 3

Unattended Robots are robots designed to work fully unattended in the back of-
fice. This type of robots operates on organization’s server without the intervention
of a human user and can be scheduled to be started automatically. The robots can
be triggered by a satisfied rule or condition or by a business event. It can be used
in repetitive, manual, and highly rule-based tasks which do not require any human
intervention

2.2. RPA Orchestrator

RPA Orchestrator is responsible for scheduling, monitoring, managing, and audit-

ing robots. It is considered the highly scalable control and management server
platform. The Orchestrator sits in the middle connecting Studio with the robots
and exposes a REST API for third party applications to be used.

2.3. RPA Studio

RPA Studio is the designer tool used for development. It enables users to create,
design and automate the workflow to be executed by robots. Business users can
program the robots by record & screenplay capability and intuitive scenario design
interface.

Fig3. RPA Components

4

3 RPA Advantages and Application Area

Robotic automation interacts with the existing IT architecture without the need of
complex system integration. RPA aims to transfer the process execution from hum
ans to bots. An average person can work 8 hours a day, while the robot can work 2
4 hours without fatigue. The average human productivity is 60%, and the error is s
mall, while the robot's productivity is 100%, without any error. Moreover, compar
ed with humans, robots can handle multiple tasks. By assigning repetitive, routine,
and high-volume task to robots, human worker become able to perform extra tasks
that before was not able to find the time to perform it. Thus, an increasing in the pr
oductivity. To benefit from its advantages, RPA technology can be applied to area
s [4], [6], [7] where there are processes containing tedious and high-volume tasks t
o be accomplished by the employee. Some of the application area of RPA is de-
picted in Table 1.

Table 1. Application Area of RPA

Industry Usage
Healthcare • Billing
• Patient registration
Human Resources • New employee joining formalities
• Payroll process
• Hiring shortlisted candidates
Insurance • Clearance & Claims Processing
• Premium Information
Manufacturing & Retail • Calculation of Sales
• Bills of material
Banking and Financial • Discovery
Services • Frauds claims
• Cards activation

4 RPA Challenges

Robotic Process Automation (RPA) recently gained a lot of attention in industries

and academia [4] as it speeds-up business growth by reducing a lot of manual and
repetitive based work [5]. However, at present, the implementation of RPA still
faces many challenges. According to the report of Global RPA Survey 2019 [3]
depicted in Figure 4, challenges at the organizational structure level include the
inability to assess process priorities (40%), lack of risk management tools (28%),
insufficient internal staff skills (24%), and the lack of sense of urgency (23%). At
the technical risk level, it is information and data security (40%), difficulty in
achieving scale (37%), and selection of a suitable development platform (30%).
 5

The financial and regulatory aspects include higher implementation costs (37%),
inappropriate application scenarios (32%), and external legal regulatory require-
ments (30%). A further discussion on these challenges is presented in Table 2.

RPA Implementation Challenges

Little sence of urgency 23%

Limited RPA Sills/talent 24%
Aversion to risk 28%
Regulatory constraints 30%
Diffficulty in deciding on best applications 30%
Making a convincing business case 32%
Difficulty in scaling applications 37%
High implementation costs 37%
Concerns about cybersecurity/data privacy 40%
Inability to prioritize potential RPA inistiatives 40%

0% 20% 40% 60%

Fig4. RPA Implementation Challenges

Table 2. RPA Implementation Challenges by Perspective

Perspective Challenges Comments
Organiza- Prioritizing potential Identifying where RPA is highly
tional Per- RPA initiatives likely to provide significant value
spective is challenging. The huge effort
will be in this stage when imple-
menting RPA. A poor choice of
processes to be automated may re-
sult in implementation failure.
Approaches for identifying the
suitable processes to be automated
is strongly required.
Aversion to risk Most of organizations prefer not
to take the risk in adopting a tech-
nology emerging. This can be
overcome by applying RPA to
many areas as case studies.
Limited RPA RPA is still an emerging technol-
Sills/talent ogy. Therefore, there is a lack in
6

skilled people in RPA.

Little sense of urgency It might take a long time to decide
implementing RPA for organiza-
tions having a little sense of ur-
gency. Many use cases are im-
portant to serve for the growth of
RPA implementation.
Technical Per- Cybersecurity/data Cybersecurity and data privacy
spective privacy were always considered crucial.
RPA is based on mining User In-
terface data that may include pri-
vate information. Thus, there is a
need for a secure RPA develop-
ment.
Scaling applications When automating a core business
process with RPA and finding that
the business is growing rapidly, if
that automated process cannot
scale as required, the RPA tech-
nology can become an obstacle for
growth. Therefore, techniques to
make the scalability easy is need-
ed.
Deciding on best ap- Ensuring that you are using the
plications right application can be very chal-
lenging. There is a need for
benchmarks on how to decide the
best application.
Financial and Implementation costs Process Analysis phase takes a
Regulatory long time in the implementation
process. By speeding up this
phase, one can reduce implemen-
tation costs. So, approaches for
accelerating the process analysis
phase is needed.
Convincing business A considerable number of use
case cases is needed to convince busi-
nesses.
Regulatory constraints New technologies are required to
meet regulatory constraints.

Prioritizing potential RPA initiatives is currently the starting point of robotic pro-
cess automation (RPA) implementation. Therefore, any poor choice of processes
for initial pilot will result in the failure of RPA implementation. In other words,
 7

establishing what is in and out of the scope for RPA, which processes should be
automated and which routines should be automated in the first place since RPA
can automate a wide range of routines, can be seen as the main challenge for RPA
implementation.

It is not difficult to see that although RPA can quickly achieve process automation
functions with a low and lightweight code, due to its deep business integration an
d its direct impact on achieving business goals and processing business data, etc.,
RPA should take over companies great interest in business changes, management
design, control, security, operational stability, and mechanisms for dealing with ex
ceptions.

5 Conclusion
Robotic Process Automation is a simple and powerful technology for a specific
business process automation. With robotic process automation, you can use tools
to create your own software robots that automatically execute defined business
processes. Your "robot" is a configurable software that is used to perform tasks
you assign and control. RPA robots can learn and can also be cloned. It has no
code, is not interrupted and intrusive, and is easy to use. However, there are some
challenges that one can face during the implementation of RPA. In this paper, we
provided an overview on Robotic process automation, RPA components, and the
challenges faced during RPA implementation. Prioritizing potential RPA initia-
tives or identifying the processes to be automated with RPA is outlined to be main
the challenges of RPA implementation. Since determining what is in and out of
the scope for RPA is the starting point of RPA implementation, a poor choice of
processes candidates for automation can widely results in RPA implementation
failure. Therefore, a considerable number of research works in this area is required.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

This work was supported by the University of Ulsan in 2020.

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