ROBOTICE PROCESS AUTOMATION

Robotic process automation (RPA) is a form of business process automation that is based
on software robots (bots) or artificial intelligence (AI) agents. It is sometimes referred to as software
robotics (not to be confused with robot software).
In traditional workflow automation tools, a software developer produces a list of actions to automate a
task and interface to the back
end system using
internal application
programming interfaces (APIs)
or dedicated scripting
language. In contrast, RPA
systems develop the action list
by watching the user perform
that task in the
application's graphical user
interface (GUI), and then
perform the automation by
repeating those tasks directly
in the GUI. This can lower the
barrier to the use of
automation in products that might not otherwise feature APIs for this purpose.
RPA tools have strong technical similarities to graphical user interface testing tools. These tools also
automate interactions with the GUI, and often do so by repeating a set of demonstration
actions performed by a user. RPA tools differ from such systems in that they allow data to be handled
in and between multiple applications, for instance, receiving email containing an invoice, extracting
the data, and then typing that into a bookkeeping system.

Historic evolution
The typical benefits of robotic automation include reduced cost; increased speed, accuracy, and consistency;
improved quality and scalability of production. Automation can also provide extra security, especially for
sensitive data and financial services.
As a form of automation, the concept has been around for a long time in the form of screen scraping, which can
be traced back to early forms of malware.However, RPA is much more extensible, consisting of API integration
into other enterprise applications, connectors into ITSM systems, terminal services and even some types
of AI (e.g. Machine Learning) services such
as image recognition. It is considered to be
a significant technological evolution in the
sense that new software platforms are
emerging which are sufficiently mature,
resilient, scalable and reliable to make this
approach viable for use in large
enterprises (who would otherwise be
reluctant due to perceived risks to quality
and reputation). A principal barrier to the
adoption of self-service is often
technological: it may not always be feasible
or economically viable to retrofit new
interfaces onto existing systems. Moreover, organisations may wish to layer a variable and configurable set of
process rules on top of the system interfaces which may vary according to market offerings and the type of

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customer. This only adds to the cost and complexity of the technological implementation. Robotic automation
software provides a pragmatic means of deploying new services in this situation, where the robots simply mimic
the behaviour of humans to perform the back-end transcription or processing. The relative affordability of this
approach arises from the fact that no new IT transformation or investment is required; instead the software
robots simply leverage greater use out of existing IT assets.

Use of RPA
The hosting of RPA services also aligns with the metaphor of a software robot, with
each robotic instance having its own virtual workstation, much like a human
worker. The robot uses keyboard and mouse controls to take actions and
execute automations. Normally all of these actions take place in
a virtual environment and not on screen; the robot does not need a physical
screen to operate, rather it interprets the screen display electronically. The
scalability of modern solutions based on architectures such as these
owes much to the advent of virtualization technology, without which
the scalability of large deployments would be limited by the available capacity to
manage physical hardware and by the associated costs. The implementation of RPA in business
enterprises has shown dramatic cost savings when compared to traditional non-RPA solutions.
There are however several risks with RPA. Criticism includes risks of stifling innovation and creating
a more complex maintenance environment of existing software that now needs to consider the use of
graphical user interfaces in a way they weren't intended to be used.

Impact on employment
According to Harvard Business Review, most
operations groups adopting RPA have promised
their employees that automation would not result
in layoffs. Instead, workers have been redeployed to
do more interesting work. One academic study
highlighted that knowledge workers did not feel
threatened by automation: they embraced it and
viewed the robots as team-mates. The same study
highlighted that, rather than resulting in a lower
"headcount", the technology was deployed in such a
way as to achieve more work and greater
productivity with the same number of people.
Conversely, however, some analysts proffer that RPA represents a threat to the business process
outsourcing (BPO) industry. The thesis behind this notion is that RPA will enable enterprises to
"repatriate" processes from offshore locations into local data centers, with the benefit of this new
technology. The effect, if true, will be to create high-value jobs for skilled process designers in onshore
locations (and within the associated supply chain of IT hardware, data center management, etc.) but to
decrease the available opportunity to low-skilled workers offshore. On the other hand, this discussion
appears to be healthy ground for debate as another academic study was at pains to counter the so-called
"myth" that RPA will bring back many jobs from offshore.

RPA actual use

 Banking and finance process automation
 Mortgage and lending processes
 Customer care automation
 ecommerce merchandising operations

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RPA Benefits

RPA Advantages and Disadvantages

Advantages
 Unlike humans, robots don't get bored
 Until they wear out, they can do the same thing again and again
 They can be very accurate-to fractions of an inch (as is needed for example in manufacturing
of microelectronics)
 Robots can work in environments which are unsafe for humans - in the nuclear orchemical
industries for example
 Robots don't have the same environmental requirements that humanis do--suchlighting, air
conditioning or noise protection Robots have some sensors/actuators which are more
capable than humans

Disadvantages
 The use of robots can create economic problems if they replace human jobs
 Robots can only do what they are told to do- they can't improvise This means that safety
procedures are needed to protect humans and other robots
 Although robots can be superior to humans in some ways, they are less dexterousthan
humans, they don't have such powerful brains, and cannot compete with ahuman's ability to
understand what they can see.

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 Application of RPA

Goals of RPA

RPA Approach
Selection of process right for RPA deployment,
high level business case development of
processes, and identification of processes that require artificial
intelligence based on support.

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How to approach Robotic Process
Automation
If you’re considering RPA software, but don’t know where to begin, here’s a list some basic steps to
start with.

1. Define and document repetitive processes

You have to select a business process that consists of clear steps and has simple objectives like
“gather data and place it into a destination folder.” Make sure that these operations are streamlined
and don’t require much human decision-making on the go to make them easier to automate.

It’s better to shortlist several of those workflows and decide which of the shortlisted operations
consume the least staff decision-making effort and, at the same time, bring the most value.

For instance, reviewing risk metrics or reporting on the most promising value streams may be the least
likely candidates for automation while registering your customers and their data into multiple back
office systems may be more successful options.

2. Define whether you need cognitive automation

Some areas may require cognitive automation, the tasks that involve computer vision (digitizing
documents), speech recognition (transcribing customer service calls), natural language processing
(responding to customer requests by phone or in a messenger), etc.

Most traditional RPA systems struggle with such tasks. If that’s the case, it makes sense to search for
a software provider with AI expertise, because cognitive bots require custom development and
configuration for the exact process flow.

3. Look for an RPA solution

The market offers rich choices in terms of out-of-the-box solutions for traditional RPA tasks. So you
need to run through some trusted ones, like Automation Anywhere, UiPath, Blue Prism, Pega, and
find an RPA bot for your specific business case.

4. Run a demo and scale

Starting on a small scale will give you understanding of the precise value RPA software can provide
to your company. If the test was successful, you can scale the bots to automate other similar
processes.

Scaling will require training your operations teams and encouraging them to find more manual
processes that can be further automated. Make sure that you’re tracking your progress and assess
performance to iterate and improve your automation processes.

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5. Estimate integration costs
Try to measure the return on investment after inquiring about the integration cost. Most providers will charge by
the hour for a traditional RPA. So, you can calculate the profitability of the automation by comparing the
increase in productivity and accuracy for a given task.

Additionally, consider the cost of integrating RPA systems into your existing software if needed. Do you have
APIs to integrate? Do you need some specific cognitive automation modules to support traditional RPA
workflows? Try answering these questions before estimating final ROI and making a decision about full-scale
adoption.