FEBRUARY 2020CIOAPPLICATIONS.COM8obotic Process Automation (RPA) has quickly taken root across many industries over just the last few years. The technology presents an opportunity to automate the everyday repetitive tasks allowing skilled workers to tackle more valuable, cognitive problems. It is not surprising that the overall RPA market revenue is predicted to expand from $1.3 billion in 2019 to $2.9 billion by 2021and $4-7 billion by 2025 since fills a gap between manual computing and software engineering. Although the term RPA conjures images of robot armies, it is a software program that functions as a user to open other software, copy and paste text, fill in forms on corporate programs, and automate manual steps to both save money and maximize human potential. It offers the advantage of running 24/7 with perfect accuracy,logged verification, and the ability to scale across the enterprise.Figure 1 shows a histogram of tasks performed in a typical organization that follows the power law in shape. The most common tasks will be automated by internal IT and software engineering groups as they represent the critical tasks and strongest return on investment (ROI).The least frequent will likely never be automated since the time and effort are not considered justifiable. Between these extremes are scripts or informal software code that execute specific functions. Some scripts may be reusable in that they work with different data sets or allow users to configure different options, whereas other scripts are narrowly focused. RPA operates in these last 3 ranges with medium to high volume automatable tasks that require minimal intelligence or human decisions.Given that solutions already exist, why do we need RPA?Writing software always means specifying requirements to achieve an objective and coding a solution. The simplest specification to make tea would be simply steeping tea in hot water for a few minutes. This level of detail is not only adequate but ideal for many cases. Excel calculations and macros provide quick answers without requirements, formal testing, or even version tracking for the spreadsheets which work fine for individual non-critical business operations. That said, studies have shown that, even without the macros, 88% of Excel spreadsheets contain errors.In contrast, a full specification for making tea would require a tea cup, a volume of water, a thermometer, a timer, a measured quantity of tea, etc. It defines what should happen The Rise of Robotic Process AutomationFigure 1.Division of solutions for various tasks including RPAPETER HENSTOCK, MACHINE LEARNING & AI TECHNICAL LEAD, PFIZERRIn My View
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