Exploring the Impact and Applications of Robotic Process Automation (RPA)

Robotic Process Automation (RPA) is software technology that’s easy for anyone to use to automate digital tasks.

Show your bots what to do, then let them do the work. Robotic Process Automation software bots can interact with any application or system the same way people do—except that RPA bots can operate around the clock, nonstop, much faster and with 100% reliability and precision.

What are the benefits of RPA?

Implementing robotic process automation leads to optimized workflows, enhancing organizational profitability, adaptability, and response time. This solution frees employees from repetitive, mundane tasks, resulting in enhanced work satisfaction, increased engagement, and maximized productivity.

RPA provides these benefits:

Accelerated Transformation in the digital front-RPA is a major component in digital transformation.

Major cost savings - RPA helps with significant improvement to business metrics across industries.

Greater resilience-RPA robots can ramp up quickly to match workload peaks and respond to big demands.

Higher accuracy- RPA bots reduce a major % of errors that occur compared to manual work. RPA is enabling 100% accuracy and perfect compliance to the standards in healthcare, life sciences and finance. They are also showing new levels of speed and accuracy in accounting.

Boosted producitivy- RPA doing the mundane tasks has in turn boosted the productivity of humans. RPA bots accelerate the workflow and help to get the work done by executing processes independently.

Value for personnel - RPA has helped the persons focus their attention towards innovation and strategic work.

How RPA transforms the current working conditions?

When robots do these types of repetitive, high-volume tasks, humans are freed to focus on the things they do best and enjoy more: innovating, collaborating, creating, and interacting with customers. Enterprises get a boost too: higher productivity, efficiency, and resilience. It’s no wonder that RPA is rewriting the story of work.

Where RPA is being used?

RPA is used in a plethora of industries like Insurance, Finance, Healthcare, Manufacturing, Public sector, Life Sciences, etc.

RPA has become so widespread because it is broadly applicable. Virtually any high-volume, business-rules-driven, repeatable process is a great candidate for automation—and increasingly so are cognitive processes that require higher-order AI skills.

Why is RPA the fastet growing tech in the world?

Rapid return on investment- The intuitive code free interface allows anyone to quickly learn the bot creation and start driving the ROI.

Minimal upfront investment and no disruption of existing systems- There is never a need to upgrade or update the existing systems of an industry. RPA can successfully and seamlessly connect across all the existing software systems thereby improving the effiencies of the humans working in that industry.

Scalable and enterprise ready- RPA enables high volume business processes to be able to adapt in uncertain times and changing environment. Its able to handle any changes planned or unplanned by expanding the digital workforce. Its so simple that anyone can do it.

Harness Aritificial Intelligence- RPA is not AI; AI is not RPA. But the combination of AI and RPA unlocks massive new possibilities for enterprises everywhere. For one thing, RPA technology now makes it possible to insert advanced AI skills in the form of machine learning models, natural language processing (NLP), character and image recognition, and more into RPA robots. AI is also making it possible to scientifically discover a complete range of automation opportunities and build a robust automation pipeline through RPA applications like process mining. And at a time when companies need to accelerate their integration of AI into front-line activities and decisions, many are finding that RPA can serve as AI’s ‘last-mile’ delivery system. Robots can be configured to apply machine learning models to automated decision-making processes and analyses, bringing machine intelligence deep into day-to-day operations.

Products that help achieve Robotic Process Automation

As with many new software implementations, there’s a build-or-buy choice when getting started with  Robotic Process Automation.

On the build side, you can write your own bots from scratch, provided you’ve got the right people and budget in place. On the buy side, there’s a burgeoning marketplace of commercial software vendors offering RPA in various flavors, as well as overlapping technologies.

These are some of the most popular products in the market that help build the RPA enterprice.

UiPath Business Automation Platform.

Automation anywhere.

Blue Prism Intelligent Automation Platform.

TruBot.

Power Automate.

IBM Robotic Process Automation.

There’s a middle ground in the build-versus-buy decision: Multiple open source RPA projects now underway give IT leaders and practitioners another option for exploring RPA without needing to start completely from scratch on your own or committing to a commercial vendor. To name a few

TagUI

RPA for python

Robocorp

Robot framework

Automagica

Taskt and OpenRPA

Robotic Process Autmation Vs Selenium:

Comparing RPA (Robotic Process Automation) and Selenium is akin to comparing apples and oranges. Both serve different purposes and are used in different contexts within the realm of automation.

Here's a breakdown of their differences:

1. Purpose:

• RPA is primarily used for automating repetitive, rule-based tasks across various applications without requiring significant changes to existing IT infrastructure. It mimics human actions and interacts with user interfaces to perform tasks.

• Selenium, on the other hand, is specifically designed for automating web browser interactions. It's mainly used for testing web applications by simulating user actions such as clicking buttons, entering text, and navigating through web pages.

1. Scope:

• RPA is broader in scope and can automate a wide range of tasks across different applications, including desktop applications, web applications, and legacy systems.

• Selenium is focused specifically on automating interactions with web browsers and is not intended for automating tasks outside of the web environment.

1. Technical Requirements:

• RPA platforms typically provide visual design interfaces and are designed to be user-friendly, requiring minimal coding skills. They often use techniques like screen scraping and image recognition to interact with applications.

• Selenium is a developer-focused tool and requires proficiency in programming languages such as Java, Python, C#, etc., to write test scripts.

1. Application:  If the task involves automating interactions across different applications or systems, RPA may be a better fit. However, if the focus is on automating interactions specifically within web applications, Selenium is the appropriate choice. Often, organizations may even use both RPA and Selenium in combination to achieve comprehensive automation coverage across different domains.
   

• RPA finds applications in various industries for automating business processes such as data entry, invoice processing, customer onboarding, etc.

• Selenium is primarily used by software development and quality assurance teams for automating web testing processes, including regression testing, functional testing, and cross-browser testing.
  

Negative Sides of RPA Technology

Long-run Sustainability.

Process selection.

Potential joblosses.

Maintenance.

Hiring skillsets.

Worker resistance.

Conclusion

It seems clear that automation is the way of the future, but will RPA win out over traditional automation? It is hard to say. Although RPA is much more flexible and doesn’t require programming knowledge to use, the high costs associated with it limits its usability, especially for smaller companies. In the end, it is up to the companies to weigh the pros and cons of RPA, and determine the future of business automation.