Robotic Process Automation
What is Robotic Process Automation?
Robotic process automation is a software-based technology to develop and implement robots that perform human actions by interacting with digital systems and software. Robotic process automation is sub-divided into three types,
§ Unattended automation
§ Attended automation
§ Hybrid RPA
Major industries use Robotic process automation, which includes insurance, banking, finance, telecommunication and healthcare. The process automation is sub-divided into two types namely Application Program Interface-based digital process and User Interface robotic process automation. RPA generates a set of instructions for a robot or bot to perform human actions in a high speed, volume and error-free task.
What will RPA do?
RPA is an automation process comprising computer vision and machine learning to perform the automation task repetitively. Instructions are passed to machines to execute the task without human intervention. Once machines perform the actions humans perform with proper education, they are programmed in such a manner.
Challenges of RPA
Some of the challenges of Robotic process automation are,
1. Scalability-Even through Robotic processes, automation is easy to implement and sometimes hard to govern and manage. Hence scalability process is a difficult one.
2. Security- The bots of RPA are sometimes supposed to access sensitive information to complete the work. Hence security risk increases.
3. Efficiency-Sometimes RPA application plods through an application as similar to human does. Hence the efficiency compared to automating applications through API or workflow automation baked into the application itself.
4. QA issues and limited resiliency- QA issues arise in the automation process, and failures in RPA occur when a change occurs in the application.
5. Limited abilities: Due to process automation, many critics have arisen that RPA software tools automate tasks. There is a chance that the bot may break when it may take more than five decisions or manipulate more than several apps or more than 500 clicks.
Applications of RPA
Some of the applications of RPA are,
1. Healthcare-In healthcare organizations, it is used for handling records of the patients, customer support, claims, account management, billing, reporting and analytics.
2. Human Resources-RPA can perform HR tasks, including onboarding and off-boarding, employee information updating, and timesheet submission.
3. Financial services- Financial services are used for foreign exchange payment, automatic account opening and closing process, managing and handling the request of the audit and processing insurance claims.
4. Supply chain management-In supply chain management is used for procurement, automating order processing and payments, monitoring the inventory levels and shipment tracking.
5. Customer Service-Day by day, various products are increasing; hence customer service also increases. It provides better customer service by automating contact centre tasks, verifying e-signatures, uploading scanned documents and verifying information for automatic approvals or rejections.
Features of RPA Software
The various features of RPA Software are,
o Intelligence- The RPA tools support simple task-based activities, which perform read and write options to any data source and take advantage of more advanced learning to improve the automation process.
o Speed-Organizations or companies can design and test the new robotic process quickly, optimizing the bots to work soon. Hence over time, taken is reduced.
o Simplicity- RPA software helps business leaders to take decisions quickly using converting the data to information.
o Scalability- RPA platforms are widely used by organizations, as they manage and scale from a central control panel rather than deploying in each device.
Apart from that, various features, which include Financial planning, Governance, Enterprise-class etc., play a significant role.
Examples of RPA use cases are,
Some of the examples of RPA use cases are,
v Payroll processing
v User configurations
v Resume and candidate verification
v Expense management
v Loan, claims and appeals processes
v Inventory and supply management
v Employee or partner onboarding
v Manual data entry and manipulation
v Document generation
v Invoice and payment processing
v Order processing and shipping notification
The above mentioned are some of the examples of Robotic process automation.
Benefits of RPA
Some of the benefits of RPA are,
o Efficiency
o Accuracy
o Access to legacy technology
o Cost Savings
Methods involved in RPA Technology
The processes involved in RPA technology are,
Ø Processing
Ø Development
Ø Testing
Ø Support & Maintenance
Summary
Robotic Process Automation is used in small to large organizations to perform human tasks across applications and systems. Robotics process automation is error-free, and hence it has good productivity. It creates a virtual workforce environment by performing repeated actions without human interventions.
