Robotics Processing Automation (RPA)

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Robotic process automation (RPA) is the use of software with artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning capabilities to handle high-volume, repeatable tasks that previously required humans to perform. These tasks can include queries, calculations and maintenance of records and transactions.

RPA technology consists of software robots (bots) that can mimic a human worker. RPA bots can log into applications, enter data, calculate and complete tasks and then log out. Currently, practitioners divide RPA technologies into three broad categories: probots, knowbots and chatbots.

• Probots are bots that follow simple, repeatable rules to process data.
• Knowbots are bots that search the internet to gather and store user-specified information.
• Chatbots are virtual agents who can respond to customer queries in real time.

RPA software is not part of an organization’s IT infrastructure. Instead, it sits on top of it, enabling a company to implement the technology quickly and efficiently — all without changing the existing infrastructure and systems. What distinguishes RPA from traditional IT automation is the ability of the RPA software to be aware and adapt to changing circumstances, exceptions and new situations. Once RPA software has been trained to capture and interpret the actions of specific processes in existing software applications, it can then manipulate data, trigger responses, initiate new actions and communicate with other systems autonomously.

Robotic process automation technology can help organizations on their digital transformation journeys by doing the following:

• Enabling better customer service;
• Ensuring business operations and processes comply with regulations and standards;
• Allowing processes to be completed much more rapidly;
• Providing improved efficiency by digitizing and auditing process data;
• Creating cost savings for manual and repetitive tasks;
• Enabling employees to be more productive.

 Some of the top applications of RPA include the following:

• Customer service: RPA can help companies offer better customer service by automating contact center tasks, including verifying e-signatures, uploading scanned documents and verifying information for automatic approvals or rejections.
• Accounting: Organizations can use RPA for general accounting, operational accounting, transactional reporting and budgeting.
• Financial services: Companies in the financial services industry can use RPA for foreign exchange payments, automating account openings and closings, managing audit requests and processing insurance claims.
• Healthcare: Medical organizations can use RPA for handling patient records, claims, customer support, account management, billing, reporting and analytics.
• Human resources: RPA can automate HR tasks, including onboarding and offboarding, updating employee information and time sheet submission processes.
• Supply chain management: RPA can be used for procurement, automating order processing and payments, monitoring inventory levels and tracking shipments.

Although the term robotic process automation can be traced to the early 2000s, it had been developing for a number of years previously. RPA evolved from three key technologies: screen scraping, workflow automation and artificial intelligence. Screen scraping is the process of collecting screen display data from a legacy application so that the data can be displayed by a more modern user interface. The advantages of workflow automation software, which eliminates the need for manual data entry and increases order fulfillment rates, include increased speed, efficiency and accuracy. Lastly, artificial intelligence involves the ability of computer systems to perform tasks that normally require human intervention and intelligence.

Today, RPA software is particularly useful for organizations that have many different and complicated systems that need to interact together fluidly. For instance, if an electronic form from a human resource system is missing a zip code, traditional automation software would flag the form as having an exception and an employee would handle the exception by looking up the correct zip code and entering it on the form. Once the form is complete, the employee might send it on to payroll so the information can be entered into the organization’s payroll system. With RPA technology, however, software that has the ability to adapt, self-learn and self-correct would handle the exception and interact with the payroll system without human assistance.

When enterprise leaders look for RPA technologies, they should consider a number of things:

• Scalability: Organizations shouldn’t select RPA software that requires them to deploy software robots to desktops or virtualized environments. They should look for RPA platforms that can be centrally managed and scale massively.
• Speed: Enterprises should be able to design and test new robotic processes in a few hours or less, as well as optimize the bots to work quickly.
• Reliability: As companies launch robots to automate hundreds or even thousands of tasks, they should look for tools with built-in monitoring and analytics that enable them to monitor the health of their systems.
• Simplicity: Organizations should look for products that are simple enough that any employee in the business can build and use them to handle various kinds of work, including collecting data and turning content into information that enables leaders to make the best business decisions.
• Intelligence: The best RPA tools can support simple task-based activities, read and write to any data source, and take advantage of more advanced learning to further improve automation.
• Enterprise-class: Companies should look for tools that are built from the ground up for enterprise-grade scalability, reliability and manageability.