In an increasingly fast and international business environment, companies need to do business in a time and cost-effective manner. Robotic Process Automation (RPA), also referred to as smart or intelligent automation, is one of the development trends in technology that could help businesses thrive, to reduce their costs, and help them achieve their planned figures. It enables the optimization of individual corporate divisions as it emerges as a software-based solution to automate rules-based business processes. These involve routine tasks structured data and deterministic outcomes. In this way, does RPA aim to replace employees by automation, or is it offering a benefit for their work?
When you hear the word Robotic Process Automation, you might imagine robots like C-3PO or R2-D2 moving around an office floor. As a matter of fact, this is not the case. RPA is a software technology using Bots or Artificial Intelligence. It mostly performs administrative tasks carried out on back-office business processes where the customer is not directly involved. For instance, analyzing and transferring data from an email or Excel spreadsheet to other systems, e.g. an SAP ERP system. Employees are able to let the Bot do their repetitive tasks for them and thus can focus more on value-adding activities. This saves time for the employee and constitutes a basis for a more effective work-manner.
In detail, an RPA tool operates by mapping a process in the RPA tool language for the software robot to follow, with runtime allocated to execute the script by a control dashboard. A big advantage for the developer or employee hoping to automate the task is that no in-depth programming skills are required. Popular RPA tools, for example, UiPath, BluePrism, or Softomotive WinAutomation, are relatively easy to use and only require a bit of training. The reason behind this is that RPA only addresses the graphical user interface of information systems and does not have to address the underlying system at all.
According to research, most businesses adopting RPA expect that automation would not result in layoffs and employees being replaced. Instead, workers are redeployed to do more interesting work. Employees even seem to achieve increasing job satisfaction, instead of detriment and view the software robot as their teammate. Further research indicates that the benefits of RPA include reduced cost, improved quality, increased speed, and accuracy.
RPA is undoubtedly a very useful tool that will enable businesses to carry certain repetitive tasks in a more efficient way than a human could. But this does not mean that software bots are replacing workers overall. Humans are clearly at an advantage when it comes to creating innovation and working on value-adding activities. If this situation stays the same depends on how future advances in the RPA technology will look like.
What is your opinion? Do you see a benefit in using RPA in your future work life?
References:
Aguirre, S., & Rodriguez, A. (2017). Automation of a Business Process Using Robotic Process Automation (RPA): A Case Study. Communications in Computer and Information Science Applied Computer Sciences in Engineering, 65-71. doi:10.1007/978-3-319-66963-2_7
Bichler, M. (2020). Robotic Process Automation. Controlling, 32(1), 69-71. doi:10.15358/0935-0381-2020-1-69
Digital Labor and Robotic Process Automation. (2020). Retrieved September 13, 2020, from https://home.kpmg/at/de/home/services/advisory/management-consulting/it-advisory/robotic-process-automation.html
Kommera, V. (2019). Robotic Process Automation. American Journal of Intelligent Systems, 9(2), 49-53. doi:10.5923/j.ajis.20190902.01
Lacity, M. (2015). What Knowledge Workers Stand to Gain from Automation. Harvard Business Review
Hi Jan Philipp,
I think you raise an interesting topic here which is inherently complex. I think it is important to raise 2 aspects for further discussion: 1) At which task complexity level will RPA stop 2) Will the people really be retrainable or even needed to be retrained?
Regarding task complexity, I think it is advisable to look into the past and see how the process automatization evolved. At the beginning, automatization was only used for smaller, minute tasks but soon whole production processes were served by machines. Even though, it will be true that machines will only become what they are learnt to do, the human ability to actually program complex environments will increase and therefore also the replacement of jobs.
Secondly, people will in general be able to do more interesting work but the question is to which extend people can be really retrained? Taking an example from a different but related field: Automated driving. What happens to the truck drivers once all trucks are driving on their own? Will they be able to be purposely put into a different area of work? My guess is that majory a replacement will only be able in a rather low complexity environment which might also already be optimized. One factor to consider however, is always the opportunity cost – is the human cheaper than the machine?. This question will increase in importance down the road when also talking about making tax laws for machines.