How RPA will be used to automate repetitive and rules-driven businesses

Before deploying RPA, it is important to understand workflow management. Workflow is not used interchangeably in the sense of process, but rather in relation to facilitating the execution and monitoring of enterprise workflows.

In order to understand how Robotic Process Automation (RPA) is used to automate repetitive tasks and business processes, one must first understand what business and processes are in their simplest form. Why? Because process is the foundation of RPA and other technical capabilities such as artificial intelligence and workflow management. Start with what the business is because that is the highest form of discussion. A business consists of two components: tasks or work and the distribution of those tasks or work. A process, on the other hand, is encapsulated in a business and contains tasks with inputs, outputs, and operators that perform these tasks. Why start here? This is important because before looking for RPA opportunities, you must first understand how you want your business to operate and what you want it to achieve, and then determine how the relevant processes play a role in functionality and achievement.

In addition, before deploying RPA, it is important to understand workflow management. Workflow is not used interchangeably in the sense of process, but rather in relation to facilitating the execution and monitoring of enterprise workflows. The main purpose of workflow management is to ensure that processes and workflows between human and automated tasks are synchronized. The relationship between process and workflow management is very important. This is important because most processes in a business are not automated but are managed by humans. Manually managing work items, tracking them, logging exceptions, prioritizing tasks, and assigning those tasks to workers is a very inefficient way to manage your business and processes. In contrast, managing processes electronically significantly enhances process communication and visibility among those working in the workflow. Furthermore, digitizing an enterprise's processes provides it with a significant advantage, being able to expose process data in near real-time and, most importantly, obtain the necessary process data to start thinking about possible RPA opportunities.

Now understand what RPA is. RPA just lets robots perform some of the work done by humans. It is a solution that performs tasks normally performed by humans. It is software, not physical machines or structures, that plays the role of virtual workers. Robots do not interpret other meanings for their configuration, meaning they cannot operate outside of a well-structured environment. They are tools for checking process boxes, but they are not used to think through or find better alternatives, that is the job of humans or AI systems. As one can see, robots can become an important part of the workforce. Robots can take over menial daily tasks, allowing people to focus on higher-value activities and key decisions.

At this point, it’s easy to understand what business and processes are, and how workflows form the basis of robotic process automation. Therefore, two key aspects are advocated to justify RPA, a virtual workforce: data and the ability to adapt to changes in workflows, and the process data, adaptability and flexibility that robots bring. Data aspects related to process metrics (e.g., cycle time, capacity, etc.), resource performance, and data from other integrated functions in the value stream can be very beneficial to any continuous improvement effort. This compares to manually traversing multiple data sources and seamlessly splicing that data across the value stream to determine where the opportunities lie. Another advantage of robots is their adaptability and flexibility as changing business needs change.

For most businesses operating legacy environments, the ability to adapt, change, react, evolve and grow is a daunting task. How do businesses respond to this challenge? They use people to fill the gap between what legacy systems can't do and produce process output. Using this combination of traditional technology and people will inflate the value stream of the enterprise. Therefore, by using robots to replace capabilities that would otherwise be used by humans, processes can be made cleaner and simpler, thereby optimizing business and process performance.

Now you’ve learned how to use RPA to automate manual and repetitive processes, along with some advice to avoid falling into the trap of sub-optimizing your RPA efforts. First, start at the top of the business and define strategic business goals. Second, identify the key business process value streams that connect to these strategic business goals. These first few steps will pave the way for opening up the enterprise's initial RPA opportunity space. Then, after identifying the RPA deployment space, target the sub-processes that drive the majority of value stream performance. Now that the opportunity space of the enterprise has been defined, it is possible to create integrations between multiple process technology capabilities within these target value streams, which will enable the establishment of working relationships between the technology capabilities.

This will also maximize the return on investment of the company's technology assets. Last but not least, deploy RPA using good business process management. Good business process management is required to implement, monitor and keep the bot running. Making robots work is important because robots make great employees. Deploying good business process management practices will put enterprises on the path to integrating business, process and technology functions into integrated solutions.

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